


Bleeding Piece of Earth

by PhoenixGryffin



Category: Julius Caesar - Shakespeare, SHAKESPEARE William - Works
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Apocalypse, Blackmail, F/F, Government, Multi, Prequel, Queer Themes, Threesome - F/F/F, Virus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-03 00:22:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2831330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixGryffin/pseuds/PhoenixGryffin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even if only five citizens of Rome had survived the cryogenic freezing, Brutus would have fought to the death to protect her city and the people in it. Rome was always, always going to be the most important thing in the world, now more so than ever.</p><p>Written for the 2014 Saturnalia Exchange.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bleeding Piece of Earth

**Author's Note:**

> Content warning for suicide, a few instances of homophobia, and a whole lot of swearing.

“Jesus _fuck_ ,” is the first thing that Cassius says when they step out of cryo; after looking around, Brutus is inclined to agree with her.

The earth may have once been lush and green, but now it’s nothing but a scorched and barren landscape featuring the occasional withered brown plant. Brutus gingerly takes a step out of the device, feeling the muted crunch of long-dead leaves underfoot as she does so.

“Not bad for fifteen years, really,” says Cassius, taking off her slightly fogged-up glasses and rubbing them on her shirt. “Thought it’d be worse, honestly. The way Titinius was talking before we got in, I expected there to be nothing left but a giant smoking crater.”

Brutus nods, only half-listening, still oddly mesmerized by all the barrenness around the cryo devices. Had the world really once been green? To Brutus, it seems like the greenness had only been a faraway dream, a distant memory.

Of course, it _is_ a distant memory. Maybe not extremely distant, but neither she nor Cassius has seen the world for fifteen years until today, though it feels like they’d just gotten into the cryo device yesterday. Brutus certainly doesn’t _feel_ any older than she did before.

“Where’s everyone else?” Upon asking, Brutus’s voice cracks—from disuse, probably—and Cassius shrugs in response.

“Good question,” Cassius replies, moving to tap gingerly on the cryo device to her right. “Hey! Anyone home?” When there’s no response to her light tapping, she knocks on the device more forcefully.

“Cassius, do you,” and Brutus’s voice cracks again, “do you think maybe everyone else got out before us, and they already met up by the machines like the plan said to?”

Cassius shrugs again. “Who the hell knows. Worth a try, I guess. Let’s go.”

“Alright,” says Brutus, stiff-leggedly wobbling toward the machines on the other side of the hill. She doesn’t get very far before thinking of another slightly more pressing question. “Do you think the virus is still out there somewhere?”

“Brutus, Titinius _said_ fifteen years would be more than enough to make sure it’s died off. Hell, she said ten years would probably be fine, but all the scientists decided on fifteen just to be sure that the virus was one hundred percent dead. So the thing’s definitely gone, and good fucking riddance to it.”

Brutus only nods, desperately hoping that this Titinius person—whom she’s met once but doesn’t know very well beyond that—had known what she was talking about.

She thinks about asking Cassius another question, asking whether this means that everyone in all the areas that didn’t have this kind of cryo technology is dead, but decides against the question. Of _course_ it means they’re dead, and asking won’t bring them back. It’s ridiculous to even consider. And even if her parents, her sister Tertia, and all the other people that Brutus knows—no, _knew_ , did somehow manage to survive the virus, they’d be fifteen years older than her. She probably wouldn’t even be recognizable to them anymore.

Hopefully their deaths were quick. Peaceful. That’s really all she can hope for, now.

The two of them, weary women in their early twenties who have lived through too much in one lifetime, finally manage to force their stiff legs to walk all the way over to the other side of the ravaged and bare hill, the place where the machines had been set up fifteen years ago and where they were all meant to meet once they emerged from cryo. Sure enough, there is a small group of people there, and Brutus hears Cassius exhale in relief.

“Oh thank _god_ ,” says Cassius, “they’ve survived, they’ve _survived_. For a minute there I thought something had gone wrong and we were the only people left in the entirety of Rome.” She pauses, and then without warning, tightly pulls Brutus into a hug. “Not that I’d _mind_ being stuck here with you, of course. If you know what I mean.”

As Brutus returns the hug, she silently agrees with Cassius, but doesn’t vocalize her thoughts. Instead she says, “You do remember that I’m married, right, Cassius? It’s been more than six months. Although technically I guess it’s six months and fifteen years.” Fifteen years. Her fifteen-year anniversary has just passed, and she’s been in cryo for it. Hell, she’s been in cryo for every single one of her anniversaries. It’s ridiculous, but it’s stupid things like these that really get to her, really cement it in her mind that the virus was real and not just something out of a bizarre dream, that living things everywhere really _were_ dying left and right until finally the scientists of Rome had no choice but to invent a cryogenic freezing system on the spot and hope to God it worked.

“Right. Of course I remember that you’re _married_ ,” replies Cassius, slowly letting her hands fall to her side as she does so. "I'm just saying. If we were really the only two people still alive. But we're not. So it doesn't matter. Fuck. Goddammit. Forget I said anything."

"Don’t worry, I know what you meant," says Brutus reassuringly, taking Cassius's hand in her own and squeezing it. “I’m just glad we survived this, honestly. I was worried.”

Cassius smirks. “What did I tell you? The scientists are geniuses. Especially Titinius.”

Brutus releases Cassius’s hand as the two of them arrive closer to the machines and the group of people around them. “Are you and Titinius—you know, a thing?”

“Good question,” shrugs Cassius. “I mean, I don’t know. I don’t think so? You know how it is. Well, you probably don’t anymore because now you’re married and all that, but whatever.”

Brutus nods as they enter the crowd, mind no longer dwelling on the conversation and instead fully focused on scanning the people around them. There’s one particular person she’s looking for. As long as Brutus can find her spouse, then everything will be more or less all right, she is sure of it-

“Brutus!” Hearing her name, Brutus whirls around to see her friend and fellow politician Caesar. Upon seeing Caesar, Cassius quickly leaves Brutus and disappears into the crowd, presumably trying to find some other people she knows.

Although Brutus is certainly glad to see Caesar is looking alive and well, Caesar is not exactly her top priority at the moment. Not that she would ever tell Caesar that, of course.

“Brutus, I was thinking we should try and set up some sort of policy regarding—”

“Look, Caesar, policies are great, but can it wait? I don’t think I’ve been out of cryo ten minutes yet and I need to find Por—”

“Ah,” says Caesar, fiddling with the chain of her necklace. “You would, wouldn’t you? Putting your lesbian wife above the future of Rome. I’m ashamed of you.” Her tone is mocking, but Brutus knows that Caesar doesn’t play around when it comes to the Roman government. Of course, neither does she, which is probably one of the reasons why the two of them get along so well.

Brutus waves to Caesar before continuing through the crowd, slowly getting more and more agitated as her wife still fails to appear. Where the hell is she?

Life without Portia is a concept that Brutus doesn’t even want to _think_ about. Continuing the search, Brutus approaches one of the machines in the center of the crowd; if Brutus knows Portia, and she’s pretty sure she does, then Portia’s probably somewhere around them.

She walks around all five of them, but Portia’s nowhere to be seen. That doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s dead though, absolutely not, no way, it just means that maybe she stopped to talk to someone else, or maybe she’s just taking a really long time to walk over to the center area, or maybe she’s trapped in her cryo device with no way to escape, or maybe—

Without warning, the door to one of the machines opens and Portia steps out, long dark hair up in a ponytail the way it always is when she’s fixing something. Upon seeing her alive and visibly unharmed wife, Brutus instantly feels almost all of the tension in her body dissipate. Thank goodness. Thank goodness that the cryogenic freezing system had actually ended up working.

Portia looks up, sees Brutus, and breaks into a grin that could only be described as a mile wide. The two of them quickly close the distance between each other before finally embracing, and Portia’s embrace is just as soft as Brutus remembers, and Brutus never wants to let go of her.

“You look good,” says Portia, head partially buried in Brutus’s shoulder. “Fifteen years and I swear you haven’t aged a day.” Brutus is too overwhelmed to respond, so she only nods.

After a while, they finally let go of each other, and Portia gasps slightly upon looking at Brutus.

“What?” asks Brutus, feeling a sudden surge of terror and wondering whether something is wrong, whether the cryo didn’t work as intended, whether the—

“Your shirt,” frowns Portia. “I’ve gotten grease all over it. God, I’m sorry.” Brutus looks down. She’s wearing a light green dress shirt, which is now accessorized by a few black grease marks, presumably from Portia’s grease-covered apron.

“Do you honestly think,” says Brutus, hugely relieved that the problem isn’t something more major, “that I care about this outfit after all that’s happened today.”

“You might not, but I do,” replies Portia. “It looks so good on you that I’ll just have to buy you a new one.” Brutus privately wonders whether that will be possible anymore, whether there will ever be any shirts like this made again, but says nothing.

They stand like that for a while before Brutus finally asks, “So what exactly were you doing in there?” if only to hear Portia’s voice and be reassured that maybe everything will be alright, that maybe it isn’t the end of the world but instead a new beginning.

“Well,” says Portia, “that’s the thing. The machines seem to be working properly, but they’re acting...weird.”

“Weird how?”

“I can’t really put it in terms that you’d understand, since you’re not a mechanic. No offense, of course,” she hurriedly adds, gesturing quickly with her hands as she does so, “but it’s just strange. All of the various mechanisms that run the cryogenic freezing stations are running smoothly, but they seem to only be powering about a fifth of them.”

“A fifth? But what about the other four-fifths of the devices?”

“It’s probably nothing, I’m sure,” says Portia, but she’s never been very good at hiding her emotions, and Brutus notices a worried look in her eyes. “Really. A team of the scientists just left to go check all of the devices out, actually. Just to make sure that everything’s okay.”

Brutus nods wordlessly, wanting desperately to believe that everything will indeed be okay.

“So who else have you seen?” asks Portia, clearly wanting to change the subject, and Brutus gladly obliges her.

“Caesar saw me and immediately wanted to talk about some sort of policy thing, if you can believe that. Also, Cassius and I were actually in adjacent devices, so I saw her right away.”

“Oh, Cassius!” exclaims Portia. Ever since they’d met, she and Cassius had always gotten along exceptionally well, which was somewhat of a surprise considering the fact that Brutus had been in a relationship with both of them before at different periods of time. Neither of them seemed to hold any grudges against the other, though, which was incredibly relieving. It was always nice when your friends—or friend and wife, in this case—got along. “How is she these days?”

“Currently? Just spent fifteen years in cryo,” says Brutus, and cracks a grin despite herself. Portia smiles as well, shaking her head.

“You’re truly a comedy genius, Brutus, I’m surprised you became a politician instead of a comedian—” Portia breaks off and stares at something behind Brutus’s right side, causing Brutus to whirl around in order to see just what it is that’s captured her attention.

At first, Brutus doesn’t see what all the fuss is about, just a group of people all swarming toward something or someone. Then a gap in the crowd emerges, and Brutus sees a small group of seven scientists. Cassius’s friend Titinius is among them, holding a clipboard and looking more pale than Brutus has ever seen her in her life.

One of the scientists says something, but Brutus is too far away to hear exactly what it is. The small crowd around the scientist, however, seems to fly into a panic, shouting things, even screaming, and Brutus finds herself unconsciously digging her nails into the palms of her hands.

“Come _on_ , Brutus.” Without another word, Portia takes Brutus’s right hand in hers and drags Brutus into the midst of the crowd, trying to get to where the scientists are. Even in the midst of the icy dread slowly filling her, Brutus still finds herself amazed at how quickly someone as short and stocky as Portia can push her way through crowds so quickly. They get to the front quickly and Portia, none too kindly, demands to know what’s going on.

The first scientist only shakes her head. It’s the soft-voiced Titinius who finally speaks up.

“Portia, right?” Titinius asks, and Portia nods. “Were you the one who told us about the machines only powering about a fifth of the devices?” Portia nods again, the worried look on her face increasing tenfold.

“You were right,” whispers Titinius. “You were right. I didn’t want you to be, but you were absolutely right.”

“You don’t mean—”

“The machines only powered approximately a fifth of the cryo devices. The other four-fifths—more than four-fifths, actually—stopped running a long time ago.”

“Which means—”

“It means that they’re all dead.” interrupts another scientist, one whose name Brutus doesn’t know. “More than four-fifths of the citizens of Rome, the ones who were in the devices that stopped working, are all dead, and they've been dead for nearly fifteen years.”

Portia reels back from the scientists as though she’s been shocked. The icy dread that Brutus had begun feeling earlier has now invaded the pit of Brutus’s stomach, leaving her with a terrible nauseous feeling that has settled down and feels like it won’t ever go away.

They’re all dead. Most of the people who Brutus had walked past every day, people who she’d been friends with, are now completely gone.

It still doesn’t feel real. It isn’t real. It’s got to be just some really fucked-up dream. She’ll wake up, and she’ll be snuggled up in bed with Portia in their house, and everything will be fine, and no one will have ever died because it was all just a nightmare.

She pinches herself, and then again, harder. But nothing happens. Everything remains horribly constant. Maybe she’ll wake up later. She has to.

Portia, next to her, seems to be having trouble breathing normally.

The news seems to have spread to the people around them. People are sobbing, screaming, shaking, and Brutus watches without really feeling much of anything, as though she were looking through an extremely long tunnel.

“Brutus?”

Some people try without much success to hide their grief, while others sob openly.

“Brutus?”

Other people just stand completely still upon hearing the news, not really seeming to process everything.

“Brutus!” Portia’s pulling on her arm, and Brutus stares dully down at her. “Brutus, oh God, are you okay? Please just talk to me, please just say something, oh my God…” and Portia finally breaks down in tears, holding on to Brutus as she does so, and Brutus somewhat robotically embraces her, still transfixed by the crowd.

The entire crowd of people around the machines seems to have heard by now, and they are all in histrionics. There had been about seventy-five thousand people in Rome, if Brutus recalls correctly. That means that only about fifteen thousand people survived. Fifteen thousand. Fifteen thousand, and there’s something about them.

“Portia,” says Brutus, and her voice is coming from very far away, through a thick fog maybe, “Portia, look.”

Portia removes her head from Brutus’s waist and glances up at Brutus, tearstains visible on her cheeks. “What?” she asks dully.

“I think most of them are women,” says Brutus, voice still very far away, almost floating, like a dream. “I think maybe the majority of the men are dead, Portia.”

“What’s _wrong_ with you, Brutus?” shrieks Portia. She doesn’t seem to be paying attention to what Brutus is saying. “Snap out of it!”

Brutus continues watching the crowd for a long time. It’s impossible for her to say how long. Maybe it’s only for a couple of seconds.

* * *

 It does eventually hit her, late at night. Portia’s taken her home and cried herself to sleep hours before it finally hits Brutus that this is real, it’s not a dream, and sixty thousand people of Rome are dead.

Brutus has always tried to hold her emotions in, has always tried to be stoic, but sometimes it’s an impossible task. Now is one of those times.

* * *

Days have passed. Brutus isn’t quite sure how many days exactly, but it’s definitely been more than one day. The sun’s risen and set and Brutus has stared dully at the wood grain patterns on her table, rarely getting up and even more rarely falling asleep; when she does sleep, she dreams of being trapped in the cryo devices, dreams of choking, of starving, of having her life brutally cut short by an experiment that was really always going to fail anyway. The cryo devices had been too hastily built, she’d _known_ it, she’d voiced her concerns about it, but had retracted her decision in the end when the virus had started completely destroying entire cities, because after all wasn’t a small chance at survival better than no chance at all?

Brutus had thought that, once. Not so anymore.

Portia walks by their table with bleary eyes and unbrushed hair, looking as terrible as Brutus feels, although she would never in a million years tell Portia that.

“How are you?” Portia’s voice sounds raw, possibly like she’s been crying, or maybe she just hasn’t talked for a long time. Brutus shrugs noncommittally, not quite sure how to answer the question.

Portia nods wordlessly, pulling out a chair from the table before heavily falling back into it. They sit there in silence for a very long time.

The silence is rudely broken by a ring at the doorbell, and Brutus starts at this unwanted interruption, surprised to be reminded that life still does exist outside of the small universe that is her and Portia. She doesn’t bother getting up to answer the door.

The doorbell rings again, more insistently this time. Brutus glances over at Portia’s unkempt and bedraggled appearance and decides that she’ll take one for the team, ‘the team’, of course, meaning Portia. Brutus slowly drags herself over to the door just as the bell rings again for a third time.

She opens the door and finds herself face-to-face with Caesar.

Caesar, Brutus has to admit to herself, looks _good_. She’s in a sharply pressed black suit, is wearing a fair amount of makeup, and there isn’t a strand of her light brown hair that’s out of place. She’s even wearing a necklace, although the chain is tucked into her suit, so Brutus doesn’t know what charm’s on it, if anything. Brutus finds herself feeling somewhat self-conscious as she pictures how she must looks to Caesar—unkempt, mussed hair, wrinkled clothes, clearly not capable of handling anything at the moment.

Caesar does a once-over, apparently taking in Brutus’s disheveled appearance, and raises her eyebrows slightly but doesn’t ask her any questions, for which Brutus is incredibly grateful.

“I—” says Brutus, “Um...Did you want to see me?”

Caesar only nods.

“I’ll just—uh, get dressed, then,” mutters Brutus awkwardly. “Will you just wait here?” Caesar nods again. Brutus had briefly considered inviting her inside before remembering than an equally unkempt Portia was inside, and Portia definitely would not have appreciated having a guest come inside when she looked the way she did.

Brutus quickly dresses herself in a sweatshirt and jeans—she may not look as put-together as Caesar does, but her outfit is at least somewhat passable for leaving the house.

“So,” begins Caesar once they leave the house and begin walking down the street, “so. A lot of things have happened, most of which I’m going to assume you already know about.”

“You mean the sixty thousand broken cryo devices? Yeah. Found out about that a while ago.” Brutus doesn’t intend to come off as bitter, but she can’t help it. As much as she tries to hide her emotions, it’s impossible for her to stay perfectly neutral when talking about the deaths of _sixty thousand_ Roman citizens.

“Exactly,” says Caesar, voice lowering.

“Do you know why?”

Caesar shakes her head. “I don’t know. I’ve been talking to a couple of the scientists and they’re still mystified. They thought at first it might have something to do with testosterone levels, but that doesn’t really make sense since there are still a few men alive, and a ton of women were killed as well. So that theory doesn’t fit.” Brutus immediately feels horribly guilty. While she’s been sitting in her house feeling sorry for herself, Caesar has been out and about trying to help Rome. If only she were more like Caesar.

Brutus quickly tries to think of something vaguely intelligent-sounding to say. “So you talked to Titinius, then?”

Caesar stops walking and regards Brutus with a quizzical look in her eye. “Brutus, who the _fuck_ is Titinius?”

“Just one of the scientists. Cassius knows her.”

“Ah. Cassius,” says Caesar, nodding imperceptibly and examining her perfectly manicured fingernails as she and Brutus continue to walk onward, and Brutus remembers—too late—that Caesar and Cassius have never exactly been on the best of terms. They’ve never displayed any overt animosity towards each other, but certainly neither of them has ever jumped at the task to socialize with the other outside of work, either. “How is she?”

“Alive,” says Brutus, because that’s really all she knows about Cassius at the moment. Caesar doesn’t press for more, instead only nodding. The two of them make their way to a small and completely deserted park, and Caesar sits down at one of the rotting picnic tables around it. Brutus immediately follows suit, sitting directly across from Caesar.

“Anyway,” says Caesar, “I don’t want to push you or anything, I realize that the past two days have obviously been as hard for you as they have for me and everyone else in Rome, but we’ve really got to get some form of government set up.”

“Government?” repeats Brutus dully.

“Think about it, Brutus. We’ve got to assume the worst in situations like this. So let’s do that now and say the rest of the United States has probably completely died out. There’s no president, no Congress, no anything.”

“Your point?” Normally Brutus would have been perfectly happy to engage in a discussion like this, but her head feels like it’s being cleaved in two and all she wants is to go home and sleep and possibly never wake up.

“Right now we’re basically in anarchy, Brutus. And we have virtually no way of leaving Rome except on foot. We used up the majority of our fuel, machinery, and technological gadgets to create the cryo devices—”

“Some help they were,” mutters Brutus bitterly under her breath. Caesar doesn’t seem to notice and plows onward with her speech.

“—so we have nothing to transport us anywhere or contact the outside world. Rome is effectively in its own bubble. We’ve got virtually no contact with the outside world, if such a thing even exists anymore. We’re a small ecosystem, and we’ve got to rule ourselves now.”

Brutus shakes her head, in awe of Caesar’s ability to think of the greater good of Rome at a time like this. “What do you propose, then?” Brutus continues, suddenly excited by the potential that creating a new government could have for their town. “I definitely think we should set up a government that’s more ruled by the people. Everyone, and I mean everyone, not just the top one percent, should have input on what we do.”

“That’s what I was thinking, too,” says Caesar, facial expressions completely unreadable. “We have to do what’s best for Rome.”

“What’s best for Rome,” repeats Brutus, almost without thinking about it. “Absolutely.” Rome’s well-being was and had always been the priority—had been when the biologists were frantically searching for the cure, had been when the mechanics were desperately racing to build the cryo devices, and Rome’s well-being still was the priority even now, even when its future almost seemed hopeless.

Because things weren’t altogether hopeless, not yet. Rome was still alive. Even if only five citizens of Rome had survived the cryogenic freezing, Brutus would have fought to the death to protect her city and the people in it. Rome was always, always going to be the most important thing in the world, now more so than ever. Rome had saved her once, way back when, and now she was forever indebted to it.

Caesar nods briskly again and then stands up, getting out from behind the picnic table as she does so. “Alright. Well, if you happen to see any other living members of the city council around, can you tell them to meet me in the city hall at eight p.m. this Friday? That’s in two weeks, I think. We need to see who’s still alive and then come up with a plan to govern ourselves.”

“Will do,” says Brutus, following suit. “See you then, I guess.”

Without warning, Caesar pulls Brutus into a hug. “God, Brutus, I’m so glad you survived. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.”

“Me neither,” agrees Brutus as she extracts herself from the hug, smiling just a bit for the first time in two days.

The two of them bid each other farewell and then head off in different directions, Caesar off to who-knows-where and Brutus back to the house that she shares with Portia. As Brutus heads back, she notices that the streets are empty, filled only with the occasional piece of rubble from houses that must have at least partially succumbed to the careless whims of the weather over the past fifteen years. The once-beautiful Rome is now derelict, ruined. As Brutus surveys her city on her way back to the house, she silently vows to bring it back to its former glory. Hell, maybe she’ll make it better than its former glory, even.

“Hello?”

Brutus nearly jumps from the shock of hearing another voice, and such a small-sounding one at that. She turns to find the source of it and is rewarded when she finds a dust-covered and disheveled-looking child—probably in her preteens if Brutus had to hazard a guess at what her age is—directly behind her on the road. The kid looks very familiar, though Brutus can’t quite place her at the moment, probably due to the dust and grime all over her.

“Um,” says the kid, “hi, Brutus, I was-”

“Wait, you’re…?” On one hand, Brutus hates letting people know that she’s forgotten them, but she’s _so_ tired, extremely weary from having to deal with everything that had happened in the past two days. The kid seems to slump an infinitesimal amount when Brutus asks that, but maybe it’s only her imagination.

“I’m, um, well, my dad is Lucius, and my name’s also Lucius—”

“Oh!” exclaims Brutus. “Right! Right. You’re my neighbor, of course I know you. Sorry, Lucius. I’ve just been really forgetful lately.” Lucius nods but doesn’t say anything, and Brutus hurriedly tries to think of something in order to fill the somewhat awkward silence that has rapidly sprung up between them. “So how is your dad anyway?”

“He’s dead,” says young Lucius flatly, biting her lip, and Brutus at once feels like the world’s biggest douchebag. How on earth could she have been so _insensitive_ at a time like this?

“Oh. God, I’m so sorry, Lucius, I didn’t realize, I was just—” Lucius waves Brutus’s apology away, blinking rapidly. The whole thing causes Brutus to feel, if possible, even worse. Lucius’s just a kid, for heaven’s sake.

“You’re not the first person,” Lucius says, apparently trying to shrug nonchalantly but miserably failing at it, and Brutus feels as if she’s going to cry. It’s not _fair_ , it’s not fair that her friend is dead, and it especially isn’t fair that his daughter is going to be fatherless at such a young age. None of this is or has ever been fair. “But anyway, is there anyway I can stay? I don’t have a mom—” (though Brutus had already been aware of this, here her heart breaks again) “—and I haven’t seen anyone else I know yet.”

“I mean, you can stay with my wife and I if you really want to, Portia probably wouldn’t mind,” offers Brutus, bracing herself for the typical sayings she often got from young kids when mentioning her significant other, questions like _But how can you have a wife, you’re a girl_ or else statements like _My daddy says people like you are going to hell_ , although those admittedly weren’t things that she heard as much in Rome as she had in her hometown—

Thankfully, none of those come—probably, Brutus remembers, because young Lucius is their neighbor, and undoubtedly was already aware that Brutus and Portia were married. Instead, Lucius accepts the offer in a polite manner, one that’s rather uncharacteristic of most twelve-year-olds that Brutus knows, and the two of them head back to Brutus’s house together.

* * *

 

Brutus had worried about what Portia's reaction to Lucius's staying in their house uninvited would be, but she quickly discovers that she needn't have worried. Portia immediately takes a shine to Lucius, after two weeks even going so far as to privately ask Brutus if they can adopt her. ****

"I have no idea, Portia," Brutus replies, always the voice of reason, though privately she wouldn't mind adopting Lucius either. The kid's adorable, if a bit quiet, but honestly who wouldn’t be, after living through all that she has? "We'd have to check with, uh, I don't know, Caesar probably."

"Caesar?" asks Portia, raising her eyebrows. "Since when did Caesar start running this town? Before this, she was just a city council member, same as you."

"Well, I'll at least have to ask the remainder of our city council, then. We're meeting at the city hall later today."

“You’d better,” says Portia mock-threateningly. “That said, though, if you happen to meet someone that you think she’d want to live with more, by all means tell me and we can let her decide where she wants to live. I adore Lucius, but I really don’t have a clue what I’m doing with this parenting thing.”

Brutus smiles. “I’ll do that, although personally I think you’re doing a lot better than I am. Hey—do you think I should take Lucius along with me to the meeting? That way she can let us know if there’s someone still alive in Rome she’d rather live with.”

“If she wants to, I guess. Although I doubt huge meetings are much fun for twelve-year-olds.”

“They definitely weren’t for me when I was that age.”

“Hell,” says Portia, “they _still_ aren’t fun for me. I don’t see the appeal in sitting around a table for five hours arguing instead of, you know, actually getting things done, but maybe that’s just me.”

“Well,” shrugs Brutus, ignoring the slight on her career, “I’ll ask her anyway, you never know.”

To Brutus’s surprise, Lucius immediately accepts her offer to accompany her to the meeting, which of course causes Brutus to fall into an inward spiral of self-doubt—if Lucius is this eager to leave, does this mean that she doesn’t like living with her and Portia?

That’s ridiculous. The kid’s twelve and has more or less stayed inside for the past two weeks, of _course_ she wants to go do something. But of course no matter how much Brutus tells herself this, it doesn’t really assuage her feeling of doubt. She’s failed at this, just like she’s more or less failed at everything else in her life, failed at everything from making her parents happy to protecting Rome.

“Hurry back,” says Portia, catching Brutus unaware with a light peck on the lips, and Brutus’s self-esteem raises just a notch. Although she may have failed at life in more ways than one, she’s sure that she definitely made the right choice when deciding to marry Portia. Brutus couldn’t ask for a better wife.

Brutus gives Lucius one of her coats, (it’s much, much too big for the tiny Lucius but there’s really nothing she can do about that at the moment) puts her only other coat on, and heads out of her house with Lucius in tow, both of them shivering slightly against the bitter late autumn winds. They make their way to the city hall, and Brutus notices that there looks to be someone familiar heading up the stairs.

“Cassius?” Cassius turns around upon hearing Brutus’s voice, and Brutus runs to catch up with her, Lucius in hot pursuit. Upon getting closer to Cassius, Brutus has to quickly stifle a gasp; the past two weeks, though they’ve affected everyone, seem to have especially taken their toll on Cassius in more ways than one. Not only are Cassius’s bespectacled eyes somewhat bloodshot, but she looks like she hasn’t slept for ages. Maybe she hasn’t.

“Brutus!” says Cassius, rubbing her arms against the cold, and Brutus mentally notes that Cassius is wearing the same exact outfit that she had been when they’d first emerged from cryo. “H-how are you?”

“Let’s go inside.” Normally Brutus would have been more than happy to keep talking right there, but Cassius currently looks like she might blow away if a sudden violent gust of wind blew by, and Brutus would rather not take any chances with that. That’s another thing, actually. The tall and lanky Cassius has always been on the thin side, but now she looks practically _skeletal_.

Cassius accepts the invitation to go inside without another word—it might be just Brutus’s imagination, but she looks extremely grateful—and the three of them enter the city hall, wind blowing around them.

“So how have you been?” asks Cassius in an almost conversational tone. Then she seems to realize what it is she’s said. “Oh, shit, I didn’t mean it like that—it’s been awful, I know it’s been awful—”

“Don’t apologize, it’s okay,” interrupts Brutus, not wanting to waste precious time with pointless apologies and also somewhat wanting Cassius to stop talking before she says another swear word in front of Lucius, who is now watching the pair of them with acute interest. “Uh, Lucius, why don’t you go see if there’s anyone else you know here? That is why you came, after all.” Lucius seems slightly reluctant to leave the two of them, but nonetheless sprints off in the direction of the elevator. Brutus finds herself fervently hoping that she’s made the right choice in letting the twelve-year-old Lucius wander around a huge government building all by herself, but it’s a bit too late to call her back. Besides, Brutus  _does_ want to talk to Cassius alone.

“Who’s the kid?” asks Cassius, sounding vaguely intrigued.

“Her name’s Lucius. Her dad was our neighbor.”

“Was?”

“Yeah,” says Brutus softly. “He didn’t make it.”

“Jesus Christ, that’s _awful_. I didn’t think about—there are little fucking _kids_ who’ve been affected by this.”

“Yeah,” says Brutus again, not really sure what else to say.

They stand there in silence before Cassius asks, “So are you just stuck with her now, or…?”

“I wouldn’t say we’re stuck with her, actually. Lucius’s actually a pretty sweet kid. Portia’s trying to convince me to try and adopt her.”

“Really!” laughs Cassius abruptly. “You as a mother. Huh.”

“What’s wrong with that?” asks Brutus, slightly offended.

“Oh, nothing, nothing. I just can’t see it at all.”

“Use your imagination,” snaps Brutus, aware that Cassius is joking but also irritated by the assumption. _I’d be a fucking great mother_ , Brutus thinks, and then feels bad about thinking the word ‘fucking’—if she’s really going to end up being a parent, she’ll probably have to stop swearing altogether. “Anyway,” Brutus says after a bit, trying to steer the topic away from all mentions of parenting whatsoever, “how have you been doing? With, you know, everything this past week.”

“Fine, I guess,” says Cassius, not meeting Brutus’s eyes.

“Are you sure?” ventures Brutus gently.

“Of _course_ I am fucking sure, Brutus.” The tone of Cassius’s voice rises until she’s nearly shouting, and a couple of the other people in the building are giving her and Brutus half-curious, half-annoyed looks. “I am motherfucking _thriving_. I’m doing pretty incredible, given the circumstances.”

“The circumstances?”

Cassius doesn’t answer, instead choosing the moment to examine one of her fingernails, which is horribly ragged.

“Cassius, what circumstances?”

“The...the whole cryo thing. You know,” mutters Cassius, still not quite meeting Brutus’s eyes.

“Cassius?”

“ _Look_ , Brutus.” Cassius begins to furiously gesture with her hands, as she tends to do when she gets agitated. “Will you please just _fuck off_ and _mind your own business_. I don’t know if you’re aware of this or not, but we can’t all have a wife and maybe a kid and as if that weren’t enough, a cutesy little house, okay? So just...so just…” Without warning, Cassius begins softly crying against Brutus’s shoulder right there in the middle of the building, and Brutus is frozen to the spot, unsure of what exactly to do in a situation like this.

“Let’s, uh...come on, Cassius,” says Brutus after a few moments in which the other council members are staring at her and Cassius. She takes Cassius’s hand and gently leads her to the women’s restroom. Thankfully, there’s no one there, and Cassius is able to finish sobbing in peace.

“Sorry,” murmurs Cassius as she rubs her eyes with a tissue, clearly embarrassed and still breathing more quickly than normal. “God, that was awful. I just haven’t seen anyone in _ages_.”

“But what about Titinius? She lives by you, right?”

“She did, yeah,” says Cassius with the air of someone who is about to reveal a terrible secret, “but that was when we both had places to live.”

“You don’t mean—”

“Gone,” confirms Cassius, using hand motions for added emphasis. “All the apartment buildings on our street completely fell apart. Must have been the weather or something. By the time I got there, it was nighttime, and I guess Titinius must have already found out about her apartment being destroyed before I got there, because she never returned to it. I've just kind of been hanging around there for the past two weeks or so.”

Brutus is aghast. “So you’re saying you didn’t have anywhere to stay for nine days? And you were out there all by yourself?” Cassius nods sheepishly, like a child that's just been caught stealing a cookie. “Why the hell didn’t you visit Portia and I? We would have been more than happy to let you stay with us.”

“I don’t know,” says Cassius. “You two are married, as you mentioned earlier, I didn’t really want to infringe on your marriage or whatever the fuck-”

“You wouldn’t be, Cassius. Absolutely not. Don’t even think that. You’re staying with Portia and I, and don’t argue.”

“You’re sure?" There's a faintly hopeful look that's appeared in Cassius's eyes.  "I mean, you’ve already got the kid to take care of.”

“Cassius,” intones Brutus firmly. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re our friend, and you always have been.”

"I know, I just-"

"Stop," says Brutus in a tone that she hopes is fierce yet still kind, but really probably just sounds too commanding, knowing her luck. "It's not a problem at all- that is, as long as you don’t mind sleeping on our couch."

"If you insist, then. I’ve slept on worse things than couches," shrugs Cassius in a conciliatory manner, still not quite meeting Brutus's eyes.

"Of course I insist. Glad that's settled," says Brutus, before she remembers another point she'd wanted to go over. "Wait, just one more thing, actually."

"What?" sighs Cassius.

"If we do actually end up adopting Lucius or something, which is obviously a very big 'if', would you, uh..."

"Would I what? Leave?"

"Hell no. What I meant was, uh, could you keep the swearing to a minimum? Just because, you know, she’s only twelve years old, and, well, I don’t know about you, but I think twelve’s still a pretty young age...” Brutus trails off, unsure exactly how to continue. Cassius stares at her for a few seconds, expression unreadable, and then grins broadly, leaving Brutus to wonder what it is that she finds so hilarious.

“You,” says Cassius, “are going to be the most stereotypical middle-class suburban mom _ever_ and it is going to be the _best thing_.” Brutus briefly considers trying to come up with some sort of witty retort, but is unsure whether she should take Cassius’s comment as a compliment or not, and says so to Cassius.

“It’s an insult. I think,” laughs Cassius. “But in all seriousness, yeah, I can do that. It’ll be fucking tough—I mean, freaking tough, but it’s possible. God, I thought you were going to ask me about something _serious_.” Brutus only shakes her head at her friend’s antics, and the two of them head out of the bathroom together.

The atmosphere in the rest of the building could not have been more different from the one in the conversation that Brutus and Cassius had just been having, and Brutus immediately becomes much more sober upon re-realizing the full magnitude of the situation—the room is dotted with a few hollow-faced, sorrowful-looking politicians here and there, but most of the people she had known before aren’t here. Maybe they’re just late. Of course.

Brutus is only kidding herself with that kind of wishful thinking, and she knows it, too. A couple more council members enter, wind whipping around their clothes as they struggle to shut the large wooden door, but they’re no one that Brutus knows.

“Titinius?” says Cassius without warning, and immediately heads off in the direction where, sure enough, Titinius the scientist is standing and talking to another woman. After a closer look, Brutus realizes it’s Casca—a council member, and yet another of Cassius’s friends whom Brutus doesn’t know very well. She goes to follow Cassius anyway, though, because there’s no one else in the room she really feels inclined to talk to at the moment.

Once she finally arrives over by the group, they seem to have already greeted each other and are now discussing the reason why Titinius is here, which is apparently because Caesar had asked the scientists to give a report about the cryo devices. Brutus finds this somewhat ironic considering the conversation that she'd had with Caesar two weeks ago (“who the _fuck_ is Titinius?”), but doesn’t comment on it.

“I have no clue what I’m doing,” says Titinius, who has a very soft voice, umber skin, and extremely dark circles under her eyes. “The team and I have been studying the cryo device systems for the past two weeks, but there aren’t any factors that are one hundred percent consistent with all the broken devices, or all of the people in them. I honestly don’t think there’s any reason for what happened.”

“An act of God, if you will?” Cassius says.

“Sure, if you like,” agrees Titinius, “though I have the feeling that’s not what Caesar wants to hear. I’ll probably just make up something about testosterone levels and hope she doesn’t notice that there are a few non-women still walking around.”

“ _Really_ though,” adds Casca, whose voice is rather loud and comes as somewhat of a shock after Titinius’s quietness, “I honestly doubt she’d notice. This is going to sound awful and I’m sorry, but _god_ , it’s gonna be tough to get laid now that there are only like two men in this entire city.” There’s a slightly shocked pause, during which Casca hurriedly adds, “Sorry, you two, we can’t _all_ like women,” gesturing to Brutus and Cassius as she does so.

“There’s a lot more than two men,” notes Titinius analytically, “and there’s a few people who aren’t men or women, if that’s more your forte.”

“Not really,” shrugs Casca. “I’m just hunting for the dick, to be honest.”  An older council member who happens to be strolling directly behind Casca just in time to hear this wonderful statement looks horribly scandalized, and quickly powerwalks away in the opposite direction. Brutus has to fight the slightly inappropriate urge to laugh.

“You should have talked to me about five years ago, then,” says Titinius matter-of-factly in response to Casca’s somewhat bald and rather politically incorrect statement.

“If I get my hands on a time machine, my first stop’ll be to visit you from the past,” vows Casca, smirking.

“Don’t waste your time machine on _that_ ,” murmurs Cassius, half to herself, and the smile slowly slides off of Casca’s face.

“Sorry, Cassius, I just...you know how it is,” Casca says after a pause, wringing her hands awkwardly. Cassius doesn’t respond, and the four of them simply stand in silence for a while, leaving Brutus to wonder whether things in Rome can ever truly be the same anymore.

Suddenly, the huge oak door opens again, and Caesar enters the building along with another female council member, Pompey. The two of them seem to be engaged in an argument.

“Look, Pompey, if you don’t want to take this opportunity it’s your loss, but—” Caesar looks up, makes eye contact with Brutus, and abruptly breaks her conversation with Pompey off mid-sentence. “Brutus! How _are_ you?” Upon seeing Caesar enter, Casca, Cassius, and Titinius walk further away, leaving Brutus alone with Caesar and Pompey. The latter looks irritated that Caesar has completely ignored her.

“I’m fine, I guess,” shrugs Brutus, at a loss for what to say.

“Caesar,” Pompey says, sounding incredibly annoyed, “I honestly can’t even _believe_ that you would suggest something so—”

“ _Later_ , Pompey,” Caesar cuts Pompey off in a tone of voice that clearly says _We’re done here._ “For now,” she says, making her voice sound more saccharine-sweet, “would you mind being a dear and rounding up all the other council members for me? We can all meet in room 315, like usual.”

The scowl on Pompey’s face couldn't make it more obvious that ‘being a dear’ is the furthest thing from her mind, but nonetheless she heads off in the direction of some other council members. Once she leaves, Caesar turns back to Brutus, shaking her head somewhat melodramatically.

“What was that all about?” asks Brutus, intrigued, but Caesar waves it off with a careless flick of her wrist.

“Oh, nothing, nothing, just a trivial disagreement is all.” Caesar absentmindedly brushes back her—once again—perfectly styled hair, and Brutus offhandedly wonders how she has time to look so impeccable what with all the work she’s probably been doing. Of course, as far as Brutus is aware, Caesar doesn’t have a spouse or child, so she probably has a lot more time on her hands than Brutus does at the moment. “We should probably head to room 315 with the others, don’t you think?” says Caesar, adjusting the chain of her necklace. Brutus nods in agreement, and the two of them climb the slick marble stairs all the way to room 315, where the other council members have already gathered.

Brutus’s first thought is that the room looks somehow bigger than usual. The people seem strangely dwarfed by the room’s large size and high, vaulted ceilings—but of course, realizes Brutus with a sickening jolt in her stomach, it’s because the majority of the council members are dead; the room is practically empty compared to the way it usually is, all loud chatter and debate from a crowd all packed uncomfortably close together in one room. Now the place just seems horribly lonely.

There are a variety of tables in the room, all strangely empty-looking. They’re dark wooden tables, and they match the shade of the room’s door almost perfectly. On the other side of the room, opposite the door, there’s a clock, and to the left of the door there’s a small cupboard with a keyhole in it—probably locked forever now, since the key to it has almost surely been lost in all the chaos ensuing from the virus and the cryo devices.

“Everyone?” queries Caesar, clearly trying to get the attention of everyone in the room. A couple of people turn to look at her, but most of them keep talking amongst each other, apparently unaware of Caesar’s presence. Caesar sighs and raps loudly on the nearest wooden table with her fist. This gets everyone’s attention, and they all slowly gravitate over to where Caesar and Brutus are.

“ _Thank_ you,” Caesar says. “Now, it appears that we’ll probably only need one table, so I say we just use this one.” There’s a general murmur of assent, and without further ado, Caesar sits down at the head of the table.

Brutus moves to sit to the right of Caesar, but her place is abruptly stolen by none other than Antony, who's another one of Caesar’s closest friends as well as a person whom Brutus isn’t very familiar with. Antony, long dark hair nearly hitting Brutus in the face as she turns, immediately starts talking with Caesar about something Brutus can’t quite make out.

Cassius, who is sitting near the other end of the table, hurriedly beckons to Brutus, and Brutus obliges, sliding into the seat to her left. Some of Cassius’s other friends, including Casca, are on this side of the table as well. As Brutus watches, Pompey deliberately takes the seat at the head of the table nearest to Brutus, so that she directly faces Caesar.

“Check out Antony,” hisses Cassius, drawing Brutus’s attention away from Pompey and back towards the other end of the table. “Is she or is she not totally gay for Caesar.” It’s not a question, and as Brutus looks at Antony—leaning in towards Caesar, nodding, apparently captivated by her, she almost finds herself agreeing with Cassius’s split-second deduction. Almost.

“I don’t know,” whispers Brutus, and it feels wonderful to be talking about stupid things like Antony’s sexuality, feels like things could maybe be normal again one day in the future. “I wouldn’t have pegged her as a lesbian.”

“Not _lesbian_ , necessarily, but just _look_ at her. I’m sure she’s at least bisexual. Plus, I bet you anything a lot of previously straight women are going to be rethinking their life choices now, mark my words.” Brutus opens her mouth to respond, to say something like _I don’t exactly think that’s how it works, Cassius, trust me on this, if I’d been able to change my sexual orientation when I was younger I’d gladly have done it_ , but Caesar’s stopped talking to Antony and has begun to bang her fist on the table again, signaling for silence, so Brutus doesn’t say anything.

“Alright,” says Caesar, standing up. “Let’s see...there are forty-two of you here.” _Out of two hundred and fifty_ , thinks Brutus bitterly. “Plus this scientist, of course,” says Caesar, gesturing over to Titinius. “What’s your name again?” Titinius tells her, and Caesar nods somewhat absentmindedly.“Very good, very good. So we need to get down to business, I suppose.”

“Who died and made _you_ leader?” hisses a voice from behind Brutus, and she doesn’t have to look behind her to know that it’s Pompey speaking.

“Well,” says Caesar, maintaining her composure rather admirably, “it appears that Mayor Crassus is no longer with us, so—”

“So,” laughs Pompey bitterly, “so you just decided to _waltz on in_ to the empty mayoral seat, then, without putting it to a vote or anything. That’s what you’re saying.”

“Pompey,” Caesar says, arching an eyebrow, “you and I were just discussing this before we walked in here, and—”

“Yes,” says Pompey, rising out of her chair so she’s at eye level with Caesar, “that’s correct. We did discuss this. Your proposition, if I recall correctly, was for us to be joint mayors, even though I _distinctly_ recall you telling other people, other _members of this council,_ ” she says, now lightly hitting her fist on the table for emphasis, “that there should no longer be a leader in an elevated position of power, and I distinctly remember them agreeing with that sentiment. And yet, and yet, you told me that everyone would be perfectly fine with our so-called ‘joint leadership’. So riddle me this, Caesar: How the _hell_ did you expect me to go along with your plan? How in the ever-loving _hell_ did you think you’d manage to trick everyone here into just accepting us as leaders? Please do tell, Caesar. I’m absolutely _desperate_ to know, as is everyone else here, I’m sure.” Her speech finished, Pompey falls backwards into her chair, point clearly made, and Brutus doesn’t know what to think anymore. Caesar surely wouldn’t intentionally do anything duplicitous to harm Rome. Would she?

“Holy _fuck_ ,” whispers Cassius under her breath, more or less summarizing Brutus’s thoughts as well.

“I,” says Caesar, and it might just be Brutus’s imagination, but she looks a bit pale. “I—” she begins again, swaying slightly back and forth. “I hardly think—” and with that, Caesar suddenly collapses, eyes rolling backwards in her head as she falls completely to the floor.

Antony’s out of her chair and by Caesar’s side before Brutus even has time to blink.

Nearly everyone has risen from their chairs and are staring at Caesar now, even Pompey, though her expression looks more scornful than everyone else’s does.

“Caesar?” asks Antony, lightly shaking the incapacitated Caesar. “Oh _god_ , Caesar, please talk to me.” Caesar doesn’t reply, but her eyelids slightly flutter, causing Antony to sigh in relief. “Thank goodness.” Then she turns to Pompey, who sits back down in her chair upon seeing that Caesar is still alive.

“Pompey,” says Antony in a calming voice, rising from Caesar’s side as she does so, “I realize you have legitimate concerns about the way Caesar has been talking about running things.”

“Of _course_ I do, and why wouldn’t I after this—”

“No, I understand you,” interrupts Antony, still in that strangely soothing voice. “I completely understand the message you’re trying to convey, and I absolutely agree. Caesar has indeed contradicted herself, it’s true. You’re completely justified in your reasons for being upset with her.” Antony pauses, but no one says anything in the silence, all their eyes fixated on her and only her. “I completely agree with what you’re saying,” repeats Antony again, apparently for emphasis. “However, it is important to consider quite a few factors. As you can clearly see here, Caesar has been under a _lot_ of stress lately. I don’t know if you’ve been to visit her at all over the past few days, but I have. She’s been staying up until _ungodly_ hours of the morning, worrying nonstop about the future of this city.” Antony pauses once again to draw breath, and is met with only silence. By now, Caesar has recovered sufficiently enough to get herself into a chair, but she doesn’t interrupt Antony’s speech either, only silently watches her along with the rest of the council members.

“Of course,” continues Antony after the pause, “this is not to say that Caesar is justified in what she said, absolutely not—no offense, Caesar.” Caesar only nods blankly. “She told Pompey something different than what she told the rest of you, and that’s clearly a serious problem. Despite this, though, I’m fully convinced that Caesar only wants the best for Rome. After all,” her voice lowers somewhat, “she was there with the rest of you. She saw the broken cryogenic storage devices, just like the rest of you. She attended the mass funerals of everyone in the broken devices, just like the rest of you.” Brutus feels a twinge of guilt upon hearing the last bit—she hadn’t gone to the mass funerals. Of course, she’d been holed up in her house with Portia and hadn’t been made aware of them as a result, but _still_. Still.

Antony plows onward. “I’m certainly not saying this as an attempt to justify Caesar’s actions in any way, but we’ve all been under a lot of stress and gone through a lot of hardship in the last week or so, and I think none more so than Caesar here. The well-being of Rome is now and always has been her first priority. This is not to say that what Caesar did was right, of course. However, I think ultimately her heart’s in the right place, but I’ll leave it up to you council members to decide what to do. After all, this _is_ a democracy, after all,” finishes Antony, sitting down, and the room explodes into a burst of chatter as she does so.

“I personally think we should give Caesar another chance,” says Brutus to Cassius amidst the rest of the babble. “Antony’s right, you know. Caesar’s only human.”

Cassius frowns, chewing absentmindedly on her pencil. “I don’t know. Antony’s an awfully smooth talker.”

“Your point is?”

“I’m not sure,” frowns Cassius, new bite marks appearing on the pencil as she bites down in earnest. “I mean, I guess you’re right. It just seems strangely convenient.”

“ _Convenient_? What do you mean convenient?”

“Well, there’s the whole thing with Caesar just so happening to collapse, and-”

“Just so happening? She has _epilepsy_ , Cassius. Why the hell are you always so insistent on believing the worst of people?”

Cassius smiles ruefully. “Oh, believe me, I wish I didn’t have to. But face it, Brutus, people are douchebags at heart. Everyone’s only out to fuck everyone else over.”

“You really _believe_ that?” asks Brutus, aghast. Cassius only shrugs, still smiling that terribly cynical smile. “Well, that’s a pretty narrow-minded way to look at things, if you ask me,” adds Brutus, desperate to get her point across. “Most people really aren’t that terrible.” Cassius only shakes her head very slowly in response.

“God, you’re always going to be insistent on believing the best of humanity, aren’t you, Brutus,” Cassius says quietly, her words nearly lost in the clamor surrounding both of them.

“So what if I am? Is there anything _wrong_ with that?”

Cassius sighs again, before saying “Of course not,” and then she takes Brutus’s hand in hers without warning. “Of course there’s not, Brutus. That’s why I like you so much.”

Brutus, feeling her face turn slightly warm, quickly removes her hand from Cassius’s and attempts to say something to return the subject back to the topic at hand—the greater good of Rome—but is interrupted by Antony standing up.

“So,” says Antony, and the entire room falls quiet, “what have we decided, then?” Everyone in the council looks around, waiting for someone to voice their opinion, but no one says anything. Finally, after what seems like minutes of silence, Pompey stands.

“Maybe,” begins Pompey somewhat sheepishly, “maybe I _was_ a bit tough on Caesar.”

“Thank you—” starts the still-seated Caesar, but Pompey isn’t done yet.

“I’m not saying that I completely forgive you, either. But I guess Antony’s right. Tensions are much too high right now for us to be arguing like this, especially when we don’t even have a real government set up yet.” Pompey sits back down gingerly once she’s done talking, and Brutus finds herself agreeing with her. Caesar certainly isn’t perfect, but neither is anyone else in the room. There are other murmurs of assent after Pompey finishes speaking—not from everyone, but it’s definitely a majority.

Antony nods briskly. “It seems most of you agree with Pompey, so I’ll let Caesar continue talking, then.”

“Why Caesar?” asks Casca loudly, who is sitting across from Cassius, both of whom were council members that had remained silent after Pompey’s speech. “Why not, say, you?”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Casca,” replies Antony without even batting an eye. “I’m just not cut out for a leadership role, surely you can tell. It’s up to people like Caesar to do that. She _is_ the one who organized this meeting, after all.”

“Sure, ‘not cut out for a leadership role’, my ass,” mutters Cassius under her breath, so that only Brutus and Casca can hear. Once Cassius says this, Casca immediately doubles up in silent laughter, and Brutus shushes the pair of them—Caesar has begun to speak.

“Thank you, _all_ of you,” Caesar says as Antony sits back down. Brutus expects her to stand, but she instead opts to remain seated, causing whatever infinitesimal doubts Brutus might have had about the validity of Caesar’s earlier collapse to vanish. Of course Caesar hadn’t staged something like that. Caesar would never do something like that, and Brutus was sure of it. Cassius was just too cynical, that was all.

“So,” continues Caesar, “I say that first we deal with-” but the door to the room opens, cutting her off. The appearance of whoever it is seems to cause a minor disturbance, with everyone on Caesar’s room turning to look at the person, although Brutus’s view of the mystery person is obscured.

“Brutus?” says a small voice from the direction of the door, and Brutus feels an icy clench in her stomach, which is almost immediately offset by a wave of relief. She’d completely forgotten about Lucius, wandering through the city hall building all by herself. How could she have been so utterly stupid? The kid’s only _twelve_. Who knows what could have happened? Brutus is going to be the world’s worst parent, she’s sure of it, worse even than her own parents had been.

Still, though, it’s good to know that Lucius is still breathing and seems to be more or less alright, at least from a distance.

“Brutus?” It’s Caesar saying her name now, staring down the table with an expression that features a perfect blend of amusement and irritation. “...Who’s this?”

“This,” says Brutus, trying hastily to think of something to say that doesn’t sound utterly ridiculous, “this is Lucius.” Cassius, to Brutus’s right, is shaking her head melodramatically.

“And?” Caesar’s not going to let her off that easily.

“And…” Brutus is only stalling now, “she was—I mean is, I mean was, my neighbor, mine and Portia’s.” She’s never been very skilled at impromptu speeches in front of groups, and it shows now more than ever.

“My dad’s dead,” says Lucius bluntly, and the entire group of forty-two politicians and one scientist turns to face the tiny pink-cheeked girl wearing an oversized coat, the girl who now has center stage, as it were. “And I was looking for other people I knew, but I didn’t see any. So Brutus wants to know whether she can adopt me. That’s it.”

“...Yes,” says Brutus, incredibly grateful for the twelve-year-old’s interruption. “More or less. Also,” she says, suddenly coming up with an idea, “this segues neatly into what I wanted to talk about. There are probably lots of kids like Lucius out there in the streets of Rome, so we should do something.” She finishes talking, but no one else says anything, so she adds, “That’s what I wanted to say,” and finds it incredibly lame in retrospect, but it’s much too late to take back now.

“That’s a very good idea, Brutus.” Caesar removes her attention from Brutus, much to the latter’s relief, and, aided by the rest of the council, Caesar begins to come up with the basic framework for a place where all the orphaned children of Rome can stay. _See? Rome will be fine_ , Brutus imagines herself saying to Cassius. People aren’t corrupt at heart.

“What about Lucius?” interrupts Cassius in the midst of Caesar’s talking. “This planning’s all very well and good, but how are we going to actually find homes for these kids?”  
“We’ll have to hire someone to work there, of course,” fires back Caesar, obviously not planning to be rattled any longer. “The place can’t run itself. And as for Lucius—well, I think Brutus is capable, don’t you? We don’t have official forms yet, so nothing’s set in stone, of course, but I think this will be fine.”

Cassius opens her mouth to reply, but then shuts it again rather abruptly.

“Is that alright with you, Lucius?” asks Caesar gently, turning to the twelve-year-old in the huge, fluffy coat. Lucius nods in reply, and there’s a warm, pleasant feeling somewhere in Brutus’s chest all of a sudden; she _matters_.

“Alright,” says Caesar, touching her hand to her neck but then dropping it just as suddenly. “That’s settled, then. Now, before we continue, I’d like to address a topic that has directly affected all of us and drastically changed life in Rome as we knew it. The cryo devices.” Maybe it’s Brutus’s imagination, but the room seems to chill right there and then, the expressions on the faces of everyone in the room to drop; it seems that everyone withdraws into their own private haze of grief, the grief that they’ve been trying their best to hide, to mask, but yet keeps returning with a stab of pain when they least expect it.

“We have a scientist here—Titinius, I believe? Yes,” she continues as Titinius nods in assent, tightly clutching a notebook, “and Titinius here is going to give a report on why so many of the cryo devices failed.” Titinius pales ever so slightly as the near accusatory gazes of forty-two politicians, Brutus’s included, meet hers. It’s apparent that many of the people in the room want answers, want justice, want a scapegoat that they can feel fully justified in blaming for the tragedy. And if Titinius doesn’t do something quickly, it’ll be her.

“Well,” begins Titinius tremulously, and Brutus desperately hopes for Titinius’s sake that she has something planned, “we—”

“Speak up!” a council member Brutus doesn’t know yells, none too kindly.

“ _Well_ ,” starts Titinius again, more forcefully this time, “we’ve been studying the devices for the past two weeks, and after looking at them nonstop, we were able to determine that there were a variety of factors affecting what happened.” Here someone tries to interrupt, but Titinius keeps talking over them, acting like no one’s said anything. “It’s important to note here that I’m a biologist, not an engineer, and thus am not the correct person to ask about the faults of the devices. However, Caesar asked me for a report, so I’ll give one nonetheless by listing all of the factors of the people inside the devices that may or not have had an effect on what happened, and I’ll explain them in detail as I do so.” The council members are silent now, paying rapt attention; they’re a pack of starving wolves waiting for Titinius to slip up, to reveal her weakness. Titinius opens her notepad and starts reading from it. “To begin,” continues Titinius, “ we determined that the primary factor is the amount of testosterone in the subject. Although testosterone levels differ from person to person, this directly factors into subject two, which is the amount of estrogen in the subject. Of course, this still leaves a few questions, which is why we all came up with a third factor, which is the amount of aspartic acid in the body, though of _course_ we didn’t think that could be fatal. However, after we studied the way the machines functioned—bear in mind, I’m not an engineer and never will be—we determined that the levels of all of the amino acids in the bodies of the subjects may have actually been affected by the cryogenic freezing process. This may have been a reason for what happened, but it also led us to wonder why the machines stopped functioning, so we—” She keeps talking, throwing scientific jargon into the air like leaves on a fall day, and Brutus is completely clueless as to what on earth she means. Titinius could be making up words for all Brutus knows—probably _is_ making them up, in fact, if what she’d said before the meeting is anything to go by, and her talk seems to be going completely over the heads of all the council members. Some of them nod at what she’s saying, eyes glazing over but still valiantly attempting to keep the charade of listening up.

Titinius keeps talking and talking nonstop, at one point drawing very elaborate diagrams of what are apparently very complex molecules, though they just look like a lot of circles and lines to Brutus. Science had never been her strong suit back in high school. Titinius keeps talking emphatically, periodically referring back to the diagrams, and many of the politicians who were previously feigning attention now simply look bored.

There isn’t a functioning clock in room 315, only the broken analog one above the door that’s been stuck at 1:44 since they first entered the room, so Brutus doesn’t know how long Titinius’s speech takes, but once Titinius says, “I apologize for not going any further into detail, but I hope that at least helps you all to understand some of the factors that may have been responsible for this terrible calamity,” it’s gotten dark outside, and Lucius has long since taken off the fluffy coat, stolen Brutus’s pen, and started using it to doodle stars of all different sizes on her own arms.

“...Thank you very much for illuminating all of us, Titinius,” says Caesar, absentmindedly toying with her necklace chain. “It appears that we should probably adjourn this meeting due to time constraints, but I think we should meet again tomorrow. Is that alright with all of you?” There are murmurs of agreement, so Caesar says, “You’re dismissed then, I’ll see you all back here tomorrow at noon,” and all the other council members rise from their seats in a cacophony of noise and file out in small groups.

Lucius seems none too upset at the prospect of leaving and runs out the door along with them, and Brutus hurries after her, neglecting to bid Caesar farewell. They head down the stairs and find none other than Cassius and Titinius, the former in the midst of congratulating the latter.

“That was the _best_ thing I’ve ever seen, Titinius, the best, you’re a _genius_ ,” says Cassius appreciatively, and Brutus feels a strange twinge in her stomach for reasons she can’t quite explain. “How the f— er, hell, did you manage to come up with all of that so quickly?”

“Most of it was real, actually,” says Titinius. “We’ve looked into everything, and I mean _everything_ , but nothing seems to make sense.” She shoves her hands into her pockets somewhat morosely and begins to walk away.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then?” asks Cassius in a hopeful tone.

“I don’t think so,” Titinius replies without turning around. “I doubt Caesar wants to talk to me again after today.” She leaves the building, still not looking back, and Brutus feels absolutely horrible for immediately having a somewhat pleased reaction to her words. Titinius seems like a perfectly nice person, and there’s absolutely no reason why Brutus should suddenly feel jealous of her.

“Can we go?” asks Lucius, who has since put the fluffy coat back on and is now tugging at Brutus’s arm, leaving Brutus to wonder what exactly it is that she’s gotten herself into.

Regardless, she smiles at Lucius. “Absolutely.” Lucius, not needing to be told twice, bolts out of the door, Brutus and Cassius following at a rather more controlled rate.

As they exit into the bitterly cold night, Brutus is instinctively reminded of the first time that she’d entered the building, a few years ago. She’d just graduated from college and arrived at Rome with nearly nothing to call her own, and had somehow been lucky enough to secure a position in the city council. At the time, she’d also just started tentatively dating Cassius, though the two of them hadn’t known each other very well back then.

They’d walked up the stairs on that brightly sunny day, the same stairs they’re walking down now, and they’d been holding hands.

And then some random asshole loitering on the stairs had shouted, “Who elected the _queers_?” and she’d panicked and hastily let go of Cassius’s hand, not wanting to be fired or anything because of this, not wanting to screw up her life the way she’d screwed it up back in Cyprus—

“They’re called _antidiscriminatory laws_ for a reason, fuckass,” Cassius had hissed at the person who’d shouted, “but I guess you wouldn’t know that, would you, given that _you_ don’t work here.” And then she’d taken Brutus’s arm in hers and continued walking into the city hall, head held high.

Brutus had been in awe of Cassius’s bravery during the whole escapade, but her favorite Cassius moment of the whole day had happened once they got inside, when Cassius had put a hand on her shoulder and urgently said, “Don’t pay any attention to douchebags like that, Brutus. They’re the minority, I swear to God. Most Roman citizens are accepting. We’re better than all that. _Rome’s_ better than all that, I promise you,” and Brutus had nodded, staring at every intricacy of Cassius’s face, and had felt herself gradually falling more and more in love with this woman and this town with each passing second.

Brutus looks back at Cassius’s face now as they descend the steps in the nighttime, and she sees the woman she’d first fallen in love with all those years ago.

“What?” asks Cassius.

“What?”

“You’ve been staring at me for the past ten seconds.”

“I...nothing,” says Brutus, feeling guilty all of a sudden. She’s _married_ , for goodness' sake. She’s married, and she’s in love with Portia, and that’s that. Cassius may have been romantically involved with her once, but that was years ago. They’re only friends now, and that’s perfectly fine. Absolutely.

The three of them continue to walk away from the city hall and towards Brutus and Portia’s house. It’s only about a five-minute walk—Brutus had done it all the time back in the summer, back when Rome was a thriving town and there had been no talk of viruses that almost instantaneously killed whatever they infected or cryogenic storage machines, but that had been on beautiful summer days, and she’d had the ability to choose between whether to walk to work or not back then; she’d owned a _car_. Now there’s no choice at all, and it’s freezing out.

God, what she wouldn’t give to have a car again. It’s a ridiculous wish, considering everything that had happened. A car is such a small, insignificant thing compared to everything else. But it’s a car right now that sounds the best to her as the three of them walked home in the freezing, biting air- and not just any car, either, it’s _her_ car Brutus wants, her little blue convertible that she’d purchased with her own money, the one that she and Portia would sometimes drive around the streets of Rome in for no particular reason, only for the fun of it.

It’s so _idiotic_ , so stupid. People have died, people have lost their loved ones and friends and family, and here she is wanting her fucking car back. Before all this had happened, Brutus had thought that she genuinely cared about the well-being of Rome, really cared, really wanted to make their city the best it could be, but apparently not.

Her self-loathing is interrupted by a sniffling noise behind her. Both she and Cassius turn around to see Lucius wiping away silent tears with the sleeves of the too-big furry coat.

“Lucius?” she asks tentatively, unsure what to do.

“I’m okay,” mutters Lucius, looking decidedly not okay as she blinks back further tears. “Really.”

“I’m sorry,” says Brutus, not knowing exactly what she’s apologizing for, or why. The kid really looks like she could use a hug, but that might make things worse, might throw the lack of her father into even sharper relief. The three of them walk in silence for a while, wind whipping against all of their coats and freezing the tears on Lucius’s face solid.

“I’m fine,” reinstates Lucius. “I’m fine. It’s just...I like you, and I like Portia, and I’m glad I’m living with you guys and not at some orphanage, but, um,” she pauses, and Brutus once again feels her heart shatter into a million pieces inside her chest. Lucius is _twelve_. When Brutus had been twelve, her biggest problems had been whether to wear a green shirt or a pink shirt to school the next day. Trivial. Incredibly insignificant, in retrospect. And here Lucius is, just a kid and with nearly everyone she knows dead.

“It’s just that,” continues Lucius as they turn onto the street where Brutus and Portia’s house is, “um, I’m fine.” She stops talking and stares straight ahead, continuing to walk. Brutus feels terrible, but doesn’t know what to say, if anything.

“I’m okay,” says Lucius again, emphasizing it for a final time. “Really. I just—I just miss my dad, that’s all. And my friends.” With that, her lip begins to quiver, and Brutus can’t help but feel grateful that they’ve just arrived back at the house. Hopefully Portia will know what to do in a situation like this, because Brutus is completely and utterly helpless.

Brutus unlocks the door, and the three of them enter the house, which thankfully is warm, bright, and cozy; the air in here is nothing like the biting winds outside. Portia’s footsteps can be heard in the adjacent hallway, and then she bursts into the room.

“Guess who managed to fix the heating system,” she sings triumphantly, wielding a screwdriver in hand, “and I-” She pauses, apparently realizing that there’s one more person in the room than she’d bargained for. “ _Cassius_? Oh my gosh, is that really you?” she exclaims, pulling the tall and lanky Cassius into a hug. “What are you doing—”

Lucius quickly walks away down the hallway and into the guest room, the one that’s now been officially designated hers, and Portia immediately lets go of Cassius and stares after Lucius, looking concerned.

“Is something wrong?”

Brutus, in a hushed voice, tells her that yes, yes there is something wrong, Lucius is crying, and she wants so badly to do something to help but doesn’t know what and—

“Brutus. It’s okay,” interrupts Portia, shaking her head. “I’ll see if I can do something. God, all of this must be terrible for her.” Without another word, she softly walks down the hallway and knocks on Lucius’s door. Brutus turns to Cassius, feeling even worse than before.

“I’m not cut out for parenting, Cassius, you saw me just there. I’m not cut out for any of this.”

“Brutus,” says Cassius, “I hate to be blunt what with Lucius here in the household, but we’ve all been fucked up by everything lately. It just takes time. You’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. The remainder of humanity will be fine.”

Brutus simply stares at Cassius. “You were just telling me today about how corrupt humanity was, Cassius, don’t act like you weren’t.”

“And it is!” says Cassius, throwing her hands up in the air. “Hell, people are terrible. There’s no question about that. But we’ve always still managed to survive nonetheless.”

That was somewhat true, Brutus supposed. Even when faced with a virus that had begun to kill millions by the day in the end, a small pocket of humanity had still managed to survive; people had managed to ultimately beat it. It had cost a lot—far, far too much, but they’d still won. Brutus sighs, suddenly incredibly exhausted from all that had taken place in the past few hours.

“Do you want something to drink?” she asks Cassius on a whim. “Well, not alcohol—we don’t have much of that,” _and I don’t know if there’ll ever even be a way to make alcohol again anymore so we should probably save it for a special occasion,_ she thinks but doesn’t say. “We have a lot of other drinks, though, I can show you those if you want.”

“That’d be great, thanks,” replies Cassius, following Brutus into their small but thankfully completely intact kitchen.

* * *

About an hour or so later, Portia enters the kitchen, interrupting Brutus and Cassius’s somewhat heated debate about whether schools or hospitals should be the Roman government’s first priority.

“Be _realistic_ , Brutus, people are probably _dying_ out there because they don’t have any access to healthcare, who cares about the goddamn multiplication tables at a time like—Oh. Hey, Portia,” says Cassius somewhat sheepishly. “Your wife and I are in the midst of some, ah, constructive criticism.”

“I can see that,” whispers Portia, motioning for both Brutus and Cassius to be quieter as she does so. “I think Lucius’s sleeping, though, so you both might want to keep your constructive criticisms at a lower level.”

“Sorry,” murmurs Brutus. “How is she, by the way?”

“Lucius?” Portia says. “Poor kid. Everything lately’s just been really tough on her. We talked for a while about, you know, everything that happened, and then she just started yawning and laying her head on my shoulder so I left her alone. Hopefully she feels better, but who knows. It takes time to get over things like this.”

“God, Portia, you should really have been a therapist,” says Cassius, taking a sip of water.

“No I shouldn’t’ve,” says Portia firmly. “I probably would’ve had to sit through four more years of school, and I’d sooner leap off a cliff than let that happen. High school was bad enough.”

“Your loss,” shrugs Cassius, taking another sip of water.

“My _gain_ , you mean,” says Portia, deftly snatching Cassius’s glass of water from her and ignoring her cry of surprise, “because people like me who actually have mechanical skills are going to be in high demand pretty soon, mark my words.”

“Not if we don’t get the government started,” retorts Cassius playfully, trying to grab her water glass back from Portia and nearly losing her balance as she fails to do so.

“Exactly my point,” Portia states triumphantly, not to be outdone. “While you two sit there mindlessly debating the values of whatever the hell it is, _I’m_ actually getting stuff done.”

Cassius only shakes her head. “Okay, okay, you win. Can I _please_ just have my water back?” Point made, Portia gladly obliges.

“You see, Cassius,” says Brutus, finally managing to get a word in edgewise, “this is what I have to live with every single day.” Cassius only shrugs good-naturedly at this, sipping from her water glass demurely.

“Oh, you know you love me,” grins Portia, swooping over to kiss Brutus on the cheek, and maybe, thinks Brutus, maybe Cassius was right about humanity finding a way to survive no matter what. Just maybe.

* * *

The next day is very similar to the one before—Brutus and Cassius attend a government meeting (sans Lucius, who did not exactly jump at the chance this time, rather opting to stay home and bake cookies with Portia) where a variety of topics are discussed, from schools to hospitals to public service to setting up a working economy again. Brutus hadn’t realized prior to now just how tough setting up a government could be. The founding fathers of America had clearly had their work cut out for them way back when.

The day after that is also similar, and so is the one after that, and the one after that. The days begin to blur, nearly every day consisting of meetings and planning and—in Brutus’s case—splitting migraines. She stays up late nearly every night, flipping through papers, studying manuscripts until the letters begin blurring and nearly leaping off the page in a tantalizing dance; the letters are almost legible if she squints and ignores the knife-like pain in the right side of her head.

“Brutus, it’s past midnight,” says a voice outside her door on one of these nights, and she turns around to see Cassius, leaning against the doorframe in an exaggerated manner.

“I know, I’m just—"

“Hoping the solution to restoring the city of Rome to its former glory will leap out of the documents and into your brain? Hate to disappoint you, darling, but that’s not quite the way politics works. Or reading, really, for that matter.”

“I just want Rome to be great again, Cassius.” Cassius enters the room, closes the door behind her, and looks over Brutus’s shoulder at the documents.

“You’re definitely not alone in wanting that,” sighs Cassius, drumming her fingers absentmindedly on Brutus’s desk. “But Rome’s not going to be great if you’re not. Fuck. That sounded a lot better in my head.” Cassius was getting better at the whole ‘not swearing’ thing, but there was still a lot of room for improvement. Although, to be fair to her, Lucius had been asleep for a long time, so there was really no reason to uphold the ban presently.

“Your point?” asks Brutus, too exhausted to deal with Cassius’s shenanigans at this hour.

Cassius gets close to Brutus, bends down, leans very close to her ear, and whispers, “Go the fuck to sleep.” With that, she straightens out, opens the door, and pauses only to say, “I _really_ hope you’ll take my words into consideration,” before leaving the room. Brutus finds herself staring at the space where she disappeared for a very long time, minutes maybe.

After snapping back into focus, however, she decides that maybe Cassius had had a point with the whole ‘sleeping’ idea, and gladly follows her advice.

The days continue to pass by, and things actually start to more or less fall into place. Other people begin to start working again, from doctors to journalists. Teachers are hired and a school is opened, which Lucius begins attending. There’s an unfortunate shortage of teachers, and specifically middle school teachers at that, but at the moment it’s the really the best thing in terms of education that Rome can offer. It’s progress nonetheless.

Near the middle of November, Portia begins traveling around and fixing things for people—she had been exactly right about having skills that were in demand, reflects Brutus upon noticing just how often her wife is gone. It was funny, really, in a sort of twisted way—professions like mechanics and teachers had been scorned so often before all of this had happened, but now they were some of the most important positions in the new Roman society.

The council meetings continue daily, and if Brutus has any say in the matter, they will for a while. Rome’s thankfully not as helpless as it was once, but there’s still _so_ much more room for improvement, especially when it comes to government.

Despite the fact that the first day’s council meeting had primarily been about what the new Roman government would be like, the subject hasn’t been approached much, the council members having come to an unspoken agreement never to bring it up. It’s infuriating though, thinks Brutus—all the people of Rome were supposed to have a voice in their government, not just the forty-two council members. That had been the plan, according to Caesar, but it isn’t happening. Instead, they simply govern from their own isolated room in the city hall, and Caesar leads most of the meetings. Brutus is sure that it’s not intentional—they need someone to facilitate the meetings, after all, and Caesar is a natural leader—but the whole thing still makes her slightly uneasy.

She confronts Caesar about the government problems during a meeting at the end of November, after Caesar has talked about what they should do with funds when they start collecting them. (“Divide and rule,” says Caesar, referring to the fact that the funds should be distributed into many different areas.)

“So,” says Brutus a bit nervously after Caesar’s spoken her piece, “I was just wondering-”

“Yes?” Caesar asks, turning to Brutus.

“Well,” begins Brutus, not entirely sure how to say what she wants to with tact—she’s gotten a lot better at public speaking over the past couple months due to the fact that there are only forty-two council members; she’s practically _obligated_ to contribute to every discussion, but it still isn’t easy by any means. “The government. Not that we’re doing poorly or anything, but as we’re functioning now, everyone else has absolutely no say in what the government’s doing, and that’s not fair to anyone here or outside.”

“That’s because,” says Caesar, sounding a bit exasperated, “we’re in crisis mode right now, Brutus. The people don’t have time to govern right now. _They’re_ too focused on surviving.”

Brutus tries to think of something to say in response, but is too distracted by the way Caesar emphasized the word _they’re_. It’s such a minor thing, really. She shouldn’t even be focusing on it.

It was just that Caesar had referred to the rest of the people of Rome as _them_. Not _us._  Them. As if the council members were somehow above everyone else; as if Caesar was.

Brutus’s thoughts are interrupted by the voice of Pompey, who had apparently been able to come up with a coherent reply much more quickly than Brutus. She hadn’t talked much at all since their last meeting for some reason, so it's somewhat of a shock to hear her again.

“Brutus has got a point, Caesar,” says Pompey in a surprisingly civil tone, considering her outburst the last time they’d discussed government issues. “That was two months ago—more than two months, actually, now that I think about it. I’m sure everyone was more focused on surviving back then, but now I think we’ve emerged from the crisis enough to give at least _some_ government power back to the people.”

“I understand your concerns,” snaps Caesar, “but I don’t think we’re quite ready for that, do you? There are still wrecked houses, businesses that aren’t functioning, a completely ruined economy—”

“And there’s going to be for a long time, Caesar, you don’t come out of cryogenic storage for fifteen years with a perfectly functioning town, not by any means. However,” Pompey says while adjusting the cuffs of her suit, looking perfectly normal except for a slight tremor in her hands, “we’ve gotten to the point where normal life has begun for many citizens again, and a part of normal life in the United States is getting the chance to have a voice in your government.”

“The United States government is effectively dead for all we know. We can run the new Roman government however we want.”

Pompey arches an eyebrow at this. “Are you saying that you want to completely abolish democracy? Start a dictatorship perhaps? Funny, I don’t recall you saying that two months ago. You were singing a much different tune back then, if my memory’s working correctly.”

“That’s not what I meant,” says Caesar, gritting her teeth slightly, “and you know it.”

“What Caesar _intended_ to say,” interjects Antony, “is that although it’s true that typical life is returning for many citizens, there are still quite a lot of things that need to be addressed before we can officially begin running the government as normal.”

“Thank you, Antony. You’re right, that’s exactly what I meant,” says Caesar, and she shares a meaningful look with Antony.

“‘Quite a lot of things’? You mean strawman excuses to keep the council’s power all to yourself?” Pompey, despite her best efforts to stay calm, seems to be losing her cool once again.

“No, Pompey, we only want the best for Rome. The people are still traumatized after what just happened, and I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want that kind of responsibility forced on me during such a stressful time,” soothes Antony.

“That is absolute _bullshit_ and you know it,” hisses Pompey, which elicits a few gasps from scandalized council members.

“Keep it civil, please—” begins Antony, but she’s cut off by a furious Pompey.

“You stay out of this! I want to hear what Caesar has to say. The real Caesar. Not her _spokesperson_.”

“Well,” says Caesar, speaking slowly and carefully, “as Antony and I have been _telling_ you for the past couple of minutes, we believe that Roman citizens are not quite ready to wield government power yet—”

“Do you really?” says Brutus, before she can stop herself.

“Of course I do, Brutus, I can’t imagine why you would think otherwise,” replies Caesar, looking somewhat affronted and hurt to see Brutus acting in such a manner, and Brutus immediately feels guilty. No matter what flaws Caesar may have, she’s Brutus’s _friend_.

“You’ve got to admit, though, the whole thing does seem kind of sketchy.” Cassius is now weighing in on the matter, and Brutus isn’t sure whether to feel glad that Cassius agrees with her or worried that she’s stirring up more trouble with Caesar.

“Look, I’ve told you all my opinion on this multiple times. This is getting repetitive,” says Caesar in a tone that clearly means  _We’re done here_.

“ _You’re_ getting repetitive!” shrieks Pompey without warning. “Will you just step down, you’ve been leading the meetings for ages now, will you—will you _just stop talking_.” Her face is beginning to flush red, and she seems to nearly be beside herself. “God, I thought maybe I could trust you with it, I _waited_ for you to let us all take part in government, but it’s not happening! How the hell could I have been so stupid?”

There’s a pause.

“I agree with her,” says Cassius, albeit much more calmly than Pompey. “Caesar, you promised that you wouldn’t try to take over the Roman government, and yet here we are with a pseudo-dictatorship, and on top of that you’re still presiding over the meetings.”

“I—” splutters Caesar, “I assure you, it’s not only me. This is and always has been a place where everyone shares their opinions.” She pauses, looking around at the people around the table, and her eyes light on Brutus. “Brutus, what’s your opinion?”

“My opinion?” repeats Brutus. “Well, I guess Cassius does have a point, you know, you _have_ been leading the meetings a lot, and-” Brutus immediately breaks off upon seeing Caesar’s face; her eyes are ice-cold, filled with pure vitriol, and Brutus has never seen such a poison-filled expression on her face before. In this moment, Caesar is more terrifying than Brutus has ever seen her before.

“Does anyone else care to express their opinion?” says Caesar, folding her arms irritably. “Am I too dictatorial for any of the rest of you?”

“Actually, yes,” says Casca, “but Cassius pretty much already said everything I wanted to already.”

Another council member, Metellus—one of the few members who isn’t female—nods in agreement, and so do a couple of the other people sitting around the table. It’s not a majority by any means, though, and Caesar points this out.

“So,” she continues, “can we _please_ just get on with this meeting and deal with everything at a later date?”

“Absolutely fucking not,” Pompey snaps, causing more swear-word-induced winces from other council members.

“Pompey, look—” begins Caesar, but Pompey is having none of it.

“I’ll tell them! I’ll tell all of them!” she suddenly shrieks, shooting to her feet. Brutus has absolutely no idea what she’s talking about; neither, from the looks of it, do any of the other council members, if the confused expressions on all of their faces are anything to go by.

“Pompey,” Caesar says calmly, a direct contrast to the out-of-control Pompey, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yes you _do_ , of course you know, I kept it secret all this time but—”

“Pompey?” asks Antony, looking genuinely concerned. “Are you okay?”

“No, you don’t understand, I’m fine, I’m perfectly-” Pompey’s rambling breaks off as she gazes at Antony, her expression changing and becoming more closed-off. “ _You_.”

“Me?” Antony’s face is still the picture of confusion.

“Of _course_ ,” says Pompey, “you’re in on it too. How the fuck did I not realize?”

Everyone at the table looks more than a little bit alarmed. Pompey seems to have completely cracked and is now shouting nearly incomprehensible words at a terrified-looking Antony, and Brutus instantly regrets her earlier choice to side with Pompey over Caesar. Looking over at Cassius’s alarmed expression, it isn’t hard to guess that she probably thinks the same thing.

“Watch me,” shouts Pompey, “just watch, I’ll tell everyone in this town about you!"

“Is there a security guard here? _Something_?” asks Caesar desperately. “Pompey, I’m going to need you to be quiet—”

“I’ve been quiet,” hisses Pompey, “for too long now, and I’m going to—I’m going to—I’m—” Her words trail off, and for a very long moment she simply stands perfectly still, looking torn. Then she exhales, and all the fight seems to leave her.

“I’m not going to do anything,” says Pompey in a very small voice. “I’m sorry for ruining your meeting.”

“Pompey—” begins Caesar, but Pompey cuts her off.

“Really,” Pompey says, pleading now, “I really am, I promise I am, I swear I didn’t mean it, I _swear_ —”

“I accept your apology,” says Caesar, and Pompey sighs in relief, “but that said, I really think you should leave this council.” Pompey pales at this.

“What—no, Caesar, I’m fine, I just—”

“You’re clearly very stressed, Pompey, I understand. These two weeks have been hard to deal with for all of us. So I think you need to take a break from government for a bit, and I think my colleagues would all agree.” Everyone at the table nods in agreement—anyone who had just been shouting as loudly as Pompey had been, and about nonexistent things—clearly was not a good fit for the city council.

“Caesar, I promise, I won’t ever bring it up again, I _promise_ you,” begs Pompey, nearly in tears by now, face becoming blotchy.

“I don’t even know what ‘it’ you’re talking about, Pompey,” says Caesar in a voice that’s not quite as soothing as Antony’s, but is close.

“I’m not talking about anything, I don’t know what I’m talking about either, I don’t know—”

“Pompey,” Caesar says, almost commanding now. “ _Please_ go home and get some rest.”

“Caesar, please—”

“This is a warning,” Caesar says, completely dropping the soothing tone; Pompey stares at her, eyes widening in terror. “Leave now and I won’t—I won’t press charges or anything. But I’m afraid I can’t say the same if you insist upon staying.” Pompey covers her face with her hands, shakily taking deep breaths.

“Fine,” she says after a while, uncovering her face to reveal an even blotchier complexion and puffy eyes. “You know what? Fine. I will go rest. That’s a wonderful idea, Caesar. I’ll go do just that. See all of you around—no, no, actually I won’t.”

She opens the door and begins to leave, only pausing to turn and say, “Good luck, everyone. With everything. I mean it,” before finally exiting and shutting the door behind her.

The room is completely silent for a very long time after she leaves.

“I had no idea,” murmurs Cassius to Brutus.

“No idea that what?”

“I didn’t realize she was under that much stress—I mean, we all have been, obviously, but something terrible must have happened to her. Maybe she lost someone really close to her and has just been repressing it all this time.”

“It’s probably good that she’s leaving the council, then, given the circumstances,” reflects Brutus, and Cassius nods but stares into space, apparently deep in thought.

Up at the non-vacant head of the table, the one farthest away from Brutus and Cassius, Caesar clears her throat somewhat awkwardly.

“So,” Caesar says, “not to make this situation any worse, but do those of you who side with Pompey still agree with her?” Brutus is torn; on the one hand, Pompey had had some good points, at least before she’d started yelling about things that didn’t exist. Of course, on the other hand, Brutus doesn’t really want to associate herself with Pompey any longer after what had just happened.

“Well,” says Brutus after a long while, “not really, no. I mean, I still think Rome should be a democracy, of course. But I guess she was taking it to an extreme.” Cassius, Casca, Metellus, and the other council members who had previously agreed with Pompey nod as well, not wanting to be grouped in with her.

“All right,” nods Caesar. “For my part, I apologize—I hadn’t realized how much I really was taking over at these meetings.”

“You weren’t talking _that_ much,” says Brutus before she can stop herself, “not really, I guess I was overexaggerating a bit.” She immediately hates herself for saying it, immediately despises that she’s resorting to flattery instead of actually stating her true feelings; Caesar _has_ been talking too much. But once she says it, Caesar looks at Brutus with a pleased expression. Her eyes are bright and she’s smiling for the first time in a long, long while, and she looks like the woman that Brutus had first befriended all those years ago. Brutus had missed her.

“Well, I guess that’s a good thing,” Caesar says. “I’ll still work on it, though. As for the rest of you who originally sided with Pompey, I’ll forgive that. We’ve all got flaws.” Brutus wonders exactly what she means by ‘flaws’—is she referring to her flaw of dominating the meetings? Or is she saying that supporting Pompey was a flaw that she’s willing to forgive? Brutus has a feeling it’s the second one, and it strikes her as a strange thing to say, although she’s not quite sure why. It seems commanding, almost.

Meanwhile, the other council members nod happily, apparently eager to be on Caesar’s good side again, except Cassius. She only stares at Caesar, eyes narrowed, and Brutus doesn’t know what her problem is. The council already has enough problems right now as is, and they don’t need a feud between Cassius and Caesar on top of that.

Caesar glances at Cassius out of the corner of her eye, but thankfully says nothing to her.

“If that’s settled,” Caesar continues, “then I’ll see you all tomorrow. You’re dismissed.” The forty-one chairs screech against the floor as everyone rises, but the distrustful expression on Cassius’s face doesn't go away.

“Cassius,” murmurs Brutus to Cassius as they walk down the stairs together, “will you _stop_ that. We’re honestly lucky enough that Caesar’s still letting us on the council after today.”

“That’s the thing,” mutters Cassius urgently. “She talks and talks about how she’s not dominating the meetings—and then you even backed her up, Brutus, what the _fuck_ was that—but then she does end up taking control of them regardless, and the fact that she gets to  dictate who’s on the council and who’s not very clearly shows it.”

“Look, you do have a point, but it’s really not an issue—”

“You’re the one who brought it up!” hisses Cassius. They’ve reached the bottom of the stairs now, and Brutus moves out of the way to let other council members pass by them. “You’re the one who started all of this, and then you dropped your position simply because Caesar pretended that she was acting charitable by letting us continue to be on the council. Is that or is that not fucked up?”

“Well—” begins Brutus, but Cassius isn’t having it.

“God, she even always controls the end of the meetings! She hasn’t even used the rules of order, Brutus, have you noticed that?”

“The rules of order, you mean like—” Brutus breaks off, suddenly remembering how all the council meetings had gone before they’d come out of cryo. They’d voted on nearly everything, and instead of someone simply dismissing the council members at the end of the meeting, two people would always have to motion for it to be adjourned until the next time they met, usually in a week. Caesar, however, had never put things to a vote in all the recent meetings that Brutus could remember, and had certainly never asked anyone to motion to adjourn. “You’re right,” says Brutus, “you’re absolutely right.”

“ _Thank_ you,” Cassius says, throwing her hands up in the air exasperatedly, “It’s good to know I’m not the only person in room 315 who notices these things.”

“But if we confront Caesar about it,” says Brutus, having just thought of something, “she’ll probably just say that she’s been under a lot of stress lately. Also, she’ll probably bring up the fact that none of us bothered to bring the rules of order up beforehand, and somehow use it as an excuse to keep the meetings running the way they always have been for the past two months.”

“ _Now_ you see what we have to deal with every day,” sighs Cassius, ruffling her hand through her short, dark hair in exasperation. “She’s so goddamn _corrupt_ , why can’t anyone see that, why can’t—” Cassius abruptly breaks off, staring upwards, and Brutus follows her gaze up the stairs to where Caesar has just exited room 315, speaking to Antony in a hushed voice as she does so. “Oh fuck. Quick, talk to me about something else. Anything.”

“Um…” begins Brutus, not sure what to say. Caesar and Antony are halfway down the stairs and approaching fast. “Yeah, so how about that...thing that Portia’s working on then, uh, what do you think about that?”

“I agree, it’s so strange!” says Cassius, who seems to be a lot better at this sort of thing than Brutus. “She’s just _so_ good at fixing things, but this is something different entirely. I would never have believed that something like that could still exist before now.”

“Something like _what_?” interrupts Caesar in a friendly tone, leaning over Brutus’s shoulder, and a jolt of icy panic runs down Brutus’s spine. _Please come up with something, Cassius_ , she thinks desperately, _please don’t give us away_. Across from her, Cassius’s expression is unreadable.

“Well,” Cassius begins, “Portia’s made this weird toy thing for our kid. Her kid, I mean. Their kid. You remember Lucius, right?” Caesar nods, and Cassius continues rambling. “It’s this thing with these gears—trust me, I can’t even _begin_ to explain it, but it’s very cool—”

“You’re living with Brutus and Portia?” interjects Caesar.

“Uh,” says Cassius, “yeah, yeah, I am. I mean, it’s just for now. Since, you know, my apartment was destroyed and nothing seems to have been done about that.” She pointedly emphasizes the last part of this sentence, glancing away from Caesar and examining her fingernails as she does so. The emphasis is not lost on Caesar, who scowls, and Brutus finds herself irritated with the pair of them. Why can’t they just get along for once?

“I see,” Caesar says. “Speaking of houses,” she adds, moving in front of Cassius—a motion that could be accidental but is probably deliberate, knowing her—“Brutus, how would you like to visit mine sometime?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” scoffs Cassius, moving to the left of Caesar and giving Brutus a slightly panicked look around Caesar’s head. “ _No one_ works harder than Brutus with regards to this government.” Brutus knows that the emphasis of ‘no one’ was meant to be yet another insult to Caesar, but she can’t help the light, giddy sensation she feels when Cassius tells Caesar this.

“It wouldn’t be to discuss government or anything.” Caesar says this without even glancing toward Cassius, and Brutus is impressed by Caesar's poise despite herself. “Just as friends. What do you say, Brutus? December, oh, twenty-sixth perhaps?”

“That’s the day after Christmas,” Cassius says, rather unhelpfully. Caesar doesn’t respond to this and stays silent, obviously waiting for Brutus to make her decision. Brutus doesn't want to say yes, but also really doesn’t feel she has a choice in the matter.

“Won’t—won’t there be a council meeting then, though?” she asks rather lamely.

“It’s the day after Christmas,” says Caesar.

“That’s a _bit_ strange, if you ask me,” Cassius pipes up. “I can understand Christmas, of course, it is—uh, _was_ a national holiday, but the day after? There’s really no reason for it, and I was under the impression we were meeting then. Or—” she continues, not to be daunted by Caesar's glare, “will the government be sufficiently put together by then, so we won’t need daily meetings? Then, of course, we’d be able to give governing power back to the people. But it sounds like we’re not doing that. Mysterious, isn’t it.”

“Very,” says Caesar dryly. “Come on, Antony,” she says, beckoning to the lurking Antony as she does so, “let’s go. It seems that you’ll probably be, ah, _busy_ on the twenty-sixth then, Brutus, but I’m sure I’ll see you around sometime,” she says, leaving Brutus feeling slightly blindsided.

“Cassius,” whispers Brutus after Caesar leaves, “will you please _stop_ it. She’s probably going to make sure you’re forced to leave the council as well, and then where will we be?”

“Socializing with Caesar at her place, apparently, or at least _you_ will,” Cassius scoffs.

“Look, arguing with her’s not going to change anything. She’s my _friend_ , Cassius—” Brutus plows on despite Cassius’s derisive laugh, “and I think if we talk together, yes, _talk_ , like reasonable people, then we can fix this without any needless bloodshed.” Cassius stares at Brutus for a long time before finally shrugging in a resigned sort of way.

“Your call,” says Cassius. “I trust you on this, so I won’t argue anymore, but I still don’t trust _her_.”

“I’m not asking you to,” replies Brutus, relieved that Cassius seems to be taking her advice. “I just don’t want you to have to leave the council.”

“God,” Cassius says, shaking her head wearily as the two of them leave the council building, “the fact that we even have to _talk_ about censoring our opinions in what’s _supposed_ to be a democratic government is so fucked up.” Brutus doesn’t say anything in response, but privately finds herself agreeing with Cassius’s sentiments.

* * *

A day later, Cassius doesn’t walk home with Brutus after their council meeting, using “Oh, well, I’ve got to do things. You know. See you later tonight,” as her excuse, leaving Brutus to wonder what on earth could possibly be going on.

She receives her answer at about six o’clock, when Cassius walks in, slams the door, and flops down heavily on the couch.

“Cassius?” Brutus asks tentatively.

“Oh. Hey, Brutus,” murmurs an incredibly weary-looking Cassius, ruffling her long and practically skeletal fingers through her hair. “Don’t mind me, it’s just been a really long day.”

“Politics?” Brutus asks the question with full sincerity, but it prompts Cassius’s trademark derisive laugh.

“ _Christ_ , no. Although don’t get me started on Caesar, that’d be just what I need to make this day even better than it already is,” Cassius says dryly. “This is more—ah, personal stuff, shall I say. Romance.”

“Romance,” repeats Brutus, heart sinking in her chest despite her best efforts to not feel anything. “Right.”

“So what happens,” says Cassius, apparently beginning to tell the story regardless of Brutus’s feelings on the matter, “is that I go to Titinius’s house,” She pauses. _Titinius_ , thinks Brutus bitterly before she can stop herself, _of course it's her_. Cassius continues, “and I ring the doorbell and wait there for about thirty seconds or so. Then _finally_ she answers the door, and by this time I’ve forgotten what I want to say so I’m just standing there like a total dumbass.”

“Then what happened?” asks Brutus, genuinely intrigued to know what happens next despite herself.

“Then,” continues Cassius, beginning to gesture animatedly, “I finally remember what I want to say, or at least the general gist of it, so I end up sort of just blurting it out right then and there. Overall, the whole thing wound up being a total nightmare.”

“Wait, what’d you say?”

“Oh god, I’ve almost completely blocked it out, but it was just something like ‘I was wondering if you wanted to go out for a coffee? Or something? As a date?”

“You did _not_ say it like that,” laughs Brutus.

“God, I _wish_ I didn’t. It was like I completely reverted back to my teenage years.”

“So then what happened?”

“She just stares at me for what must have been at least thirty seconds, and then finally she says—” Cassius continues speaking, adopting a surprisingly accurate Titinius voice as needed, “‘Oh, I didn’t realize!’ and then she does that thing where she covers her mouth with her hand in surprise or what the hell ever. You know what I mean, right? That thing she does?” Brutus nods, and Cassius plows onward. “Then she says something like ‘You see, the thing is that I’m not really interested in you—don’t take it personally. I’m not really interested in anyone. Sorry, Cassius, I hope we can still be friends though. ’ And I just stand there like the stupid fuck—I mean freaking, I said freaking—the stupid freaking idiot that I am.”

“ _Cassius_ ,” says Brutus, shaking her head ruefully and trying valiantly not to laugh. The story itself really isn’t that funny, but Cassius is such an animated storyteller that it’s impossible to stay perfectly serious while listening to her escapade.

“Yeah,” nods Cassius, ruffling her hand through her hair forcefully. “So there’s that romantic pursuit gone.”

Brutus thinks about asking Cassius whether she’s ever thought of any other romantic pursuits recently, but decides not to because just then she remembers something else from Cassius’s story that she’d wondered about.

“Cassius?”

“Hmm?”

“Titinius has a house?”

“Yeah, why—Oh. Well,” says Cassius, “yeah, apparently they’ve just made housing available to people, and I didn’t know—well, I _did_ know, but I figured, hey, there are probably people out there who need a house more urgently than I do at the moment, since you guys have so generously opened your home and hearth to me or whatever.”

“That’s very noble of you,” says Brutus mock-teasingly, leaning closer to her.

“I can leave, though, if you—”

“No, if you’re so insistent on sacrificing your well-being for the greater good, then I’m sure Portia won’t object to you staying for longer. I know I don’t.”

“Really?” says Cassius quietly.

“Of _course_ , Cassius,” replies Brutus. “I—We both love you.”

* * *

Life continues and amazingly manages to do so as well as life can, considering all that’s happened. The subject of government isn’t brought up again after the incident with Pompey, but Brutus has a feeling that it won’t be long until Cassius snaps.

Being at home is much more pleasant that being at the council. Brutus has gotten so used to Cassius living with them that by now it seems strange that she once didn’t, seems strange that they weren’t always a unit of three with a child.

On December seventeenth, Brutus and Cassius arrive home from the council meeting as usual, only to be greeted by the Portia nearly barrelling into them, like a small, dark, and incredibly enthusiastic bullet.

“Not to brag or anything, but I just did something _incredibly_ cool, you guys, you’ve got to check it out,” Portia says all in a rush, practically dragging them to the bedroom that she shares with Brutus as she talks.

“As in?” queries Cassius, laughing slightly but still apparently willing to go along with whatever the shorter woman is talking about. Portia doesn’t respond until they reach the bedroom door.

“Check it _out_ ,” says Portia, ushering Brutus and Cassius into the room, where the main appeal other than the bed seems to be...a bunch of screens, all different sizes and attached to several different monitors—some of the screens had clearly once been televisions, others computer screens, still others cell phones. Brutus isn’t quite sure what she’s supposed to be looking at, and judging by the confused expression residing on Cassius’s face, neither is Cassius.

“...Did you fix the town’s Wi-Fi?” asks Cassius after a couple beats.

Portia lightly slaps her on the arm in a playful manner. “No, you idiot. Although something like that should probably be my next project. This is probably actually a lot cooler than that, though.”

“And it is?” Cassius asks.

“Well, just look!” Portia grabs a remote and presses the ON button, which causes all the screens to immediately light up, all showing different streets of Rome.

“Holy _shit_ ,” murmurs Cassius. “You didn’t.”

“I did,” grins Portia, looking incredibly pleased with herself. Brutus isn’t quite sure what all the fuss is all about.

“Did what, exactly?” she asks, and both Portia and Cassius turn to her, a slightly amused yet exasperated look on both of their faces.

“They’re the security cameras,” explains Portia patiently. “I managed to access the network of security cameras that was previously only accessible through the city hall.”

“So?”

“So we can see multiple things going on in different parts of Rome, of course.”

“No offense, Portia, that’s amazing and you are the most talented woman I know—” Portia looks incredibly pleased at this, while Cassius scowls— “but what exactly is the purpose of all this? Why do we want a giant security system in our bedroom?”

“I guess you’ll discover that later—” begins Portia, but Cassius cuts her off.

“Why the hell _wouldn’t_ you want a giant security system in your bedroom? Apart from being really awesome—nice job, Portia, by the way—” Portia looks, if possible, even more pleased— “it’ll be perfect for our job. Think about it. If Caesar or anyone’s abusing their power, we can easily get confirmation of it on here.”

“There’s no feed on here for the city hall, though,” says Brutus, and Cassius frowns.

“You’re right, didn’t think of that. Portia, I don’t suppose—”

“Don’t even _think_ about it,” Portia sighs. “If there’s not an existing camera there that’s connected to this feed at the moment, then my hands are tied.”

“Ah,” says Cassius, “Right. But it’ll still probably come in handy in case anything happens on the streets or something.”

“What could possibly happen on the streets with regards to our jobs, Cassius? We sit in a room and talk about things all day. That’s it.”

Cassius only shrugs. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

* * *

Much later that night, Lucius decides to go over to her school friend’s house for a sleepover, so it’s just the three of them in the house. After spending a while simply watching the people of Rome on the security system, the three of them talk about mindless, lighthearted things for a while—about the weather, about Lucius, about Portia’s job, until Cassius mentions something about how freezing it is and promptly leaves to put on a sweater before Portia even gets the chance to think about adjusting the heating system.

After a few moments, Cassius emerges from Brutus and Portia’s room wearing a holiday sweater that’s just a bit too large for her slender frame. It’s not just any sweater—it’s got red and green stripes on it, and it also features golden bells that jingle with every move Cassius makes. To put it kindly, the thing’s hideous.

“Where,” says Brutus, aghast, “did you find that thing.”

“And where’s the nearest fire?” asks Portia, voicing Brutus’s thoughts exactly.

Cassius grins wryly. “Found this in your closet, as a matter of fact.”

“It’s yours,” says Brutus to Portia almost too quickly.

“Hell no,” replies Portia. “I’m way too curvy for that thing. Must be yours.” She raises her eyebrows slightly as if to express her total disgust at Brutus’s fashion choices.

“Come to think of it, Brutus, I do remember you wearing this thing at least once when we were dating,” Cassius chimes in.

“You do _not_ ,” protests Brutus weakly, but it’s too late. Portia and Cassius are both giving her identical smirks.

“It’s okay, Brutus,” Cassius says dramatically, bending down to mockingly kiss Brutus on the hand. “I still love you.”

“Get a room, you two.” Portia’s laughing as she says it, but Brutus’s stomach slightly clenches, and she can’t help but wonder if Cassius’s crossed a line with her overdramatic romantic gestures.

“But _Portia_ ,” replies Cassius, still in a joking manner, “it wouldn’t be the same without you there.”

“No, I suppose it wouldn’t,” says Portia, smiling. “Cassius, I’m going to miss you when you leave. You’re right, it won’t be the same.”

“Thank you, Portia,” says Cassius, and the smile’s left her face now; she’s completely serious. “I appreciate it. Really.”

The three of them awkwardly stand there for a long time, Brutus not knowing what to say or how to break the silence that’s sprung up between them.

“Well,” Portia says finally, “Well, now we all know we want to sleep with each other.” Cassius simply begins smirking, and Brutus feels her face turning warm.

“What,” says Brutus.

“Oh, don’t act like you haven’t been making goo-goo eyes at Cassius for the past two months, Brutus, you’re the least subtle person I know,” snaps Portia.

“I-,” stammers Brutus, beginning to wring her hands a bit, “I—yes, I have, but look, Portia, I’m sorry—”

“But-” interrupts Portia, “I admit, you’re not the only one.”

“What,” says Brutus again.

“Unless I’m wrong,” says Portia, frowning. “Am I, Cassius?”

“You’re not,” murmurs Cassius.

“ _What_ ,” says Brutus for the third time.

“Oh, it’s not that unreasonable, Brutus- am I right, Cassius? Back me up on this.”

“I am,” Cassius states in response to what Portia says. “I am fully and completely backing you up. Both you and your wife are wonderful human beings.”

“I’m sorry, what exactly are we saying here?” Brutus asks, feeling her face getting warmer.

“Well—” begins Cassius, but Portia interrupts.

“Let’s cut to the chase. I’m in love with both you and Cassius.” On one hand, the somewhat blunt words seem strange coming out of Portia’s mouth, but on the other hand they really don’t; Portia’s never been one to talk around things, preferring instead to state her opinions outright. She continues, “And Cassius is in love with both you and me. We’ve confirmed that, right?” Cassius nods again.

“So,” says Portia, “my only question for you is: Are you?”

“Am...I? In love with both of you?” asks Brutus. Portia only nods. “I—,” begins Brutus, not knowing what to say, “yes, okay, I do love you both, but if this is some kind of trick or something I’m not falling for it, I’m not—”

“It’s not a trick,” interrupts Portia, leaning up to kiss Brutus on the left side of her face.

“I’m glad we sorted that out,” says Cassius, leaning down to kiss Brutus on the opposite side, and Brutus is suddenly very grateful for the small things in life.

* * *

That night, Portia and Cassius are asleep, one on each side of Brutus, but Brutus can’t manage to shut her eyes; she knows she _should_ , knows that by all rights she would be feeling stress-free after the wonderful night she’d just had with the two of them, but she just can’t. The looming government problems keep invading her brain, keep returning even when she doesn’t want them to. There are so many people out there who aren’t as lucky as she is, people who don’t have others still alive who love them, and she can’t do anything to help them what with Rome the way it is currently.

“Brutus?” asks a bleary and glasses-less Cassius who is apparently not, as Brutus had previously thought, asleep. “What time is it?”

“It’s still nighttime,” sighs Brutus.

“Go the fuck to sleep.”

Brutus doesn’t reply.

“Brutus?” asks Cassius suddenly, apparently having decided not to follow her own advice about going the fuck to sleep.

“Yes, Cassius?”

“Is it government stuff? Whatever’s keeping you up, I mean.”

“What else,” sighs Brutus. It’s clear that Cassius knows her too well.

“Ah,” says Cassius. “Do you want me to start a fight with Caesar again? Because I’ll gladly do that. I’ll _own_ this motherfucker and I’ll _win_ and these nerds are going down and—”

“No,” interjects Brutus, cutting off Cassius’s bleary and increasingly rambly monologue. “That’ll only hurt Rome overall. At this point, we need to just cooperate.”

“Like what Caesar’s doing with us right now.”

“Right.”

“That,” says Cassius, “was sarcasm.”

“I know,” sighs Brutus. “I know.”

Cassius doesn’t respond, and Brutus wonders if maybe she’s gone back to sleep.

“Cassius?” Brutus isn’t sure why she’s trying to keep the conversation going, only knows that she can’t sleep and doesn’t want to be alone. A childish desire, yes, but it’s true regardless.

“Brutus, some of us would actually like to get eight hours in before the next meeting, so—”

“Do you remember my sister?” The words burst from Brutus before she has a chance to take them back.

“Tertia?” says Cassius softly, no longer irritated-sounding.

“Yeah,” replies Brutus in a tone that’s just as soft. “She came to visit one time, remember? You and I were dating then, and you told me she was the hotter sister.”

“I was joking, Brutus—”

“I know,” says Brutus. “I know.” Tertia. The last Brutus had heard of her, she’d been happily married to a male lawyer back in their hometown of Cyprus. Tertia’d always been a better child than Brutus, always doing exactly what she was supposed to. Tertia hadn’t been the one who’d found herself attracted to girls again and again despite her parents’ explicit condemnation of ‘the gay lifestyle’, as they called it. Tertia hadn’t felt the need to completely relocate, to move to Rome due to fear of ostracization from the hyperjudgemental community of Cyprus.

Tertia’d been the better child. She’d stayed in Cyprus, had married a lawyer, had given their parents grandchildren, and now she was dead because of it.

Brutus has long since realized that life had a pathetic sense of humor, but things like Tertia’s death are what really cement it for her. It’s not fair that she’s dead and Brutus is alive. It’s not fair, and it never has been.

“Brutus?” asks Cassius softly. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” says Brutus, not sure whether she’s lying or not. Cassius doesn’t press the issue, only moving in closer to Brutus in an almost protective manner. Brutus is incredibly grateful for it; she’s grateful for the fact that she has both Cassius and Portia no matter what.

* * *

It’s a clear, cold Sunday afternoon near the end of February, and Brutus, Cassius, and Portia are taking a walk around Rome, (“What the hell else are we supposed to do, since _someone_ hasn’t managed to set up a working Wi-Fi network,” Cassius had said, to which Portia had replied that maybe there wouldn’t ever _be_ any Wi-Fi network if _certain people_ didn’t stop constantly complaining about the lack of one. Cassius, knowing she was beaten, hadn’t replied.) when a piece of paper taped to a post catches Brutus’s attention, and she leaves the other two behind to look at it.

Brutus feels an icy chill in her stomach when she reads the paper’s heading, ‘ROMAN GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION’; however, that’s nothing compared to the dread she feels when she reads the byline.

“What is it?” asks a pink-cheeked Cassius, who, along with Portia, has since caught up to Brutus. Without comment, Brutus shows her the paper.

Cassius is silent for a long time, before finally saying, “Well, they’re not wrong, I guess.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Brutus says, pointing to the byline. “ _This_ is what.”

“‘By Publius Cimber’—hey, isn’t that Metellus’s little sister?” asks Cassius, and Brutus nods wordlessly as Cassius continues, “‘with special contribution from’—” Here Cassius breaks off, expression unreadable.

“Who is it?” asks Portia, standing on tiptoe in a valiant attempt to look over Cassius’s shoulder.

“Pompey,” says Brutus. “Pompey contributed to this.”

Portia’s eyes widen just a bit. “Isn’t she the one you guys were just telling me about the other day? The former council member who started screaming at Caesar during a meeting?”

“The very same,” says Brutus.

“And it appears,” interjects Cassius, who is still reading the article, “that she’s decided to testify against Caesar.”

“What’s she saying?” asks Brutus, hoping against hope that Pompey’s argument sounds at least _somewhat_ rational, that she’ll be a voice of reason against the way the government’s being run instead of inadvertently giving the public more reasons to support Caesar.

“She’s pretty good, actually,” Cassius says once she finishes skimming the paper. “Keeps going on and on about Caesar’s ‘malicious secrets’, though, and I have no idea what the fuck that’s supposed to mean.”

Brutus takes the paper and skims it; Cassius was right, it _is_ pretty good, and Pompey brings up a lot of legitimate points. With luck, it may actually help the public to realize the injustices in the way Caesar’s running the council.

“Can’t wait to see how Caesar reacts to this,” laughs Cassius somewhat bitterly, mirroring Brutus’s thoughts exactly.

* * *

The next day, the entirety of room 315 is abuzz. Every single member seems to have already read the article, and everyone has an opinion on it. Brutus simply hovers near Cassius and listens in.

“My sister’s the one who wrote that article,” Metellus is saying repeatedly to whoever will listen, which gets him either scowls or congratulations depending on which council members he’s talking to.

“You might not want to spread that,” hisses Cassius in his ear.

“Why not?” says Metellus, looking slightly offended. “It’s a good piece of writing.”

“Of course it’s a good piece of writing,” says Cassius. “It’s a fucking _great_ piece of writing. That’s why you shouldn’t talk about it.” Metellus still looks slightly confused, so Cassius clarifies, “What’s great for us isn’t great for Caesar, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“No, I get that, but it’s a free country, isn’t it?”

Cassius only sighs. “I hope so, Metellus. I hope so.” With that, she walks away, leaving a slightly indignant Metellus behind with Brutus.

“‘I hope so’? What the hell is she talking about? This _is_ a democracy, isn’t it? We haven’t fallen into the pages of _1984_ or something?” Metellus asks Brutus in a slightly panicky manner. Brutus hasn’t read _1984_ , or many books for that matter, but she can’t just leave Metellus in this state.

“We’re certainly supposed to be a democracy,” says Brutus in what she hopes is a reassuring tone of voice. “That’s what we’re going for, at any rate.”

“I just don’t want anything to happen to my little sister,” says Metellus.

“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” replies Brutus. “Even if we’re not currently a democracy, it’s not like Caesar’s started executing the citizens of Rome or anything.”

“That’s true. I guess we’ll see what Caesar has to say about all of it, then.” After this, Metellus heads to his seat, and Brutus decides that she should probably do the same.

The door opens and Caesar storms in, a whirlwind of papers and surprisingly flyaway hair with Antony hot on her heels. Everyone in the room falls silent, simply staring at the two of them. Caesar pointedly ignores the stares, places the papers on the table, smooths down her hair, and heads to the front of the room, Antony in tow.

“So,” says Caesar once Antony has taken a seat, “I personally think that our next step with regards to the school system should be—”

“You’re just going to jump into things without even a hello?” says Casca incredulously.

“We’ve got a lot to get done today, Casca,” snaps Caesar, “and I think it’s best we don’t waste time on any foolishness.”

“Foolishness?” Casca repeats. “Like the article about you? Is that what you mean?” The room erupts into chatter.

“It’s certainly strange how you’ve been avoiding the topic this whole time.”

“And it’s also strange how the rules of order have never been used once.”

“The government isn’t even _remotely_ in a crisis right now—”

“My sister wrote that article!” Metellus’s slightly deeper voice, though not exceptionally loud, still cuts through most of the others at the table, and Caesar raises an eyebrow upon hearing it.

“Did she,” says Caesar, and the whole room falls silent. “Did she really.” Brutus can’t help but notice the slightly panicked expressions on everyone’s faces; Caesar clearly terrifies nearly everyone, at least to a degree. Even Brutus has to admit to herself that Caesar intimidates her a bit, and they’re supposed to be _friends_. They were friends. No, they are friends. Caesar’s made some bad government choices, but that doesn’t mean that she still can’t be Brutus’s friend. Right? Brutus doesn’t know, but she fervently hopes so.

“Yes,” the normally introverted Metellus replies, voice quavering a bit, “she did. And I think she’s right.”

“Ah,” says Caesar, smoothing back her hair again, “do you.”

“Well, don’t just stand there, Caesar,” scoffs Cassius from her seat next to Brutus, “what do you have to say about all this? People are bringing up incredibly valid concerns, and you’re just standing there. Wouldn’t want to have to vote you off the council, now would we.”

“No,” replies Caesar, fingers drumming rapidly on the table, expression unreadable, “we certainly wouldn’t.”

“So?”

“ _So_ ,” Caesar hisses, eyes suddenly alight with a manic vitriol, “this is how it’s going to be, then. Pompey and this guy’s sister are going to leave town or be forced to. Effective immediately.”

“What the fuck,” says Cassius, and no one flinches at the swearing this time. “Caesar, are you _insane—_ ”

“And all of you are going to back my decision up, because this is a democracy.”

“Not on your _life_ ,” laughs Casca.

“Oh, I think you will,” Caesar says, fidgeting with the chain on her necklace.

“Well, you thought wrong then.”

“Did I,” says Caesar, and takes off her necklace with her right hand, finally revealing what’s on the end of the necklace.

It’s a key, a small golden one.

Brutus doesn’t quite know what to make of the whole thing, and neither, it seems, do most of the other council members. Cassius, however, is staring at the key with a look of pure terror.

“You’re bluffing,” Cassius says shakily, gripping the edge of the table so hard her knuckles begin to turn white. Brutus has no idea what’s going on.

“What?” hisses Brutus to Cassius, but Cassius only softly kicks her underneath the table, eyes never leaving Caesar.

“I assure you, my dear Cassius,” says Caesar coldly, lightly tapping the fingers of her left hand on the table in a controlled manner, “I most definitely am not bluffing.”

“Will _someone_ please tell me what is going on here,” interjects Casca.

“Nothing’s going on,” says Cassius. “We need to get Caesar out of the council. Now.” She rises, but the rest of the room, Brutus included, stays frozen; everyone’s eyes are fixed on Caesar and Caesar alone.

“I disagree,” says Caesar, methodically heading over to the small cabinet next to her, inserting the key into the lock, and turning it. Cassius sprints over to her, but stops abruptly once Caesar pulls out a small jar and acts as if she’ll open it.

“You _wouldn’t_ ,” says Cassius.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I absolutely would, and I think you know it, too,” replies Caesar, jar clutched between her fingers. “If it’s a choice between my life or my position on the council, then you should know that I’d choose my council position over anything in the world.”

“You wouldn’t,” repeats Cassius, but her voice sounds fainter, almost scared.

“Please sit down, Cassius, you’re disturbing the meeting.”

“Caesar—”

“I’m not going to ask again.”

Without a word, Cassius returns to her chair, looking very small.

“What the _hell_ was that all about,” asks Casca flatly. Caesar sighs.

“Since none of the rest of you seem to have picked up on it,” says Caesar, “in this jar, I have the last remaining specimen of the virus that previously destroyed civilization as we know it.”

Room 315’s inhabitants remain absolutely, petrifyingly still, and Brutus isn’t quite sure she’s heard correctly. The virus is gone, it’s _dead_ , the scientists had been sure of it. This is impossible.

“How?” asks Brutus before she has a chance to think about it.

“I had one of the scientists collect it,” replies Caesar, “because I said it might be interesting to study later on, and he agreed. Unfortunately, he didn’t survive the cryo device malfunctions, so it appears I’m the sole owner of the virus now.” She shrugs nonchalantly, and Brutus feels a chill run down her spine. _Maybe_ , she thinks, _the cryo malfunctions weren’t really malfunctions after all_ , but then forces herself to stop thinking that way, because conspiracy theories won’t help any of them. With luck, Caesar will just destroy the virus and everything will turn out fine.

Brutus wants to believe that more than anything in the world.

“And you’re going to do _what_ with it, exactly?” Casca asks Caesar loudly.

“With luck, nothing.”

“Nothing?” Brutus can practically hear Casca’s sigh of relief.

“I don’t want to kill any of you,” says Caesar, “and I’d rather not die, either.” Casca really does sigh with relief at this.

“But,” continues Caesar, and Brutus involuntarily tenses, “that notwithstanding, I will be willing to release this into the streets of Rome if I have to.”

“If you _have to_?”

“Casca,” says Cassius in a voice that sounds ages older than it is, “don’t you get it? It’s blackmail. If we don’t do what she wants, we’re fucked.”

This time, it’s Casca’s turn to say, “You _wouldn’t_.”

Caesar doesn’t respond, instead pressing onward with her speech, absentmindedly tapping the sides of the jar as she does so. “Here’s what’s going to happen. Pompey and—” (she gestures to Metellus) “this guy’s sister are going to be convicted of treason against the government, and then they’re going to be exiled from Rome. Effective immediately.”

“This is a democracy,” says Metellus, voice shaking. “You can’t just _do_ that.”

“That’s correct,” replies Caesar, “which is why all of you are going to vote in favor of their exile.”

“You can’t make us do anything,” spits Metellus forcefully, apparently having mustered up a bit more courage.

“Correct again. However, I can have you put in a room with only the virus for company, and I doubt you’d prefer that to the much less painful alternative.”

“Well,” says Metellus, voice cracking slightly as he stands up, “then we’ll just have to take it from you.”

Caesar opens her mouth to respond, but Antony begins speaking before Caesar gets the chance to. It's apparent that Antony had already known about the virus before today; she'd simply been watching the proceedings with a mild interest until now.

“No,” Antony replies, standing up to presumably shield Caesar from any potential threats, “you won’t. If you get any closer, she’ll open it. But you’re not going to _get_ any closer, because I’m not going to let you put all of our lives in jeopardy over something so ridiculous.” 

“Ridiculous?” murmurs Cassius softly, so that only Brutus can hear.

“Thank you, Antony,” says Caesar, giving Antony a look Brutus can’t discern the meaning of. “Does anyone have any questions?” Room 315, usually so chatter-filled, is deathly silent, as if the previously talkative council members had all been replaced by ghosts.

“Then I believe that’s all for this meeting!” Caesar smiles and makes as if to adjourn, but immediately turns back around to face everyone. “Wait—one more thing. If I were all of you, I wouldn’t discuss the current, ah, _situation_ with anyone outside the council. It would _certainly_ be a shame if your family and friends were to worry about this sort of thing when there’s really no need to. Don’t you agree?”

A few members of the council nod hollowly.

“Glad we’ve gotten that sorted out, then,” says Caesar in a voice that’s still oddly cheery. She places the vial containing the virus in her pocket and motions for everyone to leave. As if in a daze, everyone stands up and does so, Brutus included.

“Brutus?” says Caesar, and Brutus freezes, unsure what to do.

“Come _on_ , Brutus, let’s go,” hisses Cassius, but Brutus remains perfectly still, not wanting to enrage Caesar.

“Brutus?” Caesar again. Brutus motions for Cassius to go ahead and turns back to face Caesar, desperately hoping she doesn’t look too nervous. Cassius only scoffs and walks down the stairs, leaving Brutus alone with only Caesar and Antony for company.

“So,” sighs Caesar, cheerful facade abruptly dropping, “So. Now you know.” Brutus only nods, unsure what to say or how to say it.

“You probably don’t believe me, but this job is exhausting,” Caesar says, not waiting for a response, “and now it’s only going to be even worse.” She pauses, and then looks Brutus directly in the eyes. “I really don’t want to kill all of humanity, you know. I really, really don’t. But if it comes down to it—” Caesar doesn’t finish the sentence.

Brutus swallows, tries to work up the nerve to say something, finally comes up with the lame-sounding “Why, though?”

Caesar laughs at that; it’s a short, derisive laugh oddly similar to those of Cassius.

“Why?” repeats Caesar incredulously. “Brutus, I love you, but have you _seen_ this town? There’s no _way_ they can run themselves. Look at the way council meetings went when we didn’t have a leader. The people _can’t_ govern themselves. _That’s_ what would cause the death of humanity, not the virus.”

“You really think that?”

“Of course,” scoffs Caesar. “People are inherently corrupt at heart, Brutus. The kind of government most of the council members have been pressing for would fall apart within weeks. Trust me on this.”

Brutus desperately wants to ask, _"If people are so corrupt, then what makes you better than the rest of us?"_ but resists the urge. She’s outnumbered here, and Caesar, although acting more or less friendly, still has the virus with her. Speaking up would be a bad idea.

“Anyway,” says Caesar, waving her hand, “how have you been? You and Portia?”

“We’re, um, doing well,” murmurs Brutus, deciding it’s best not to bring up Cassius.

“Good, good,” nods Caesar absentmindedly, picking up her purse and rifling through it as Brutus talks. “I moved in with my girlfriend a few months ago as well, actually.”

Brutus isn’t sure she heard right. “Your—girlfriend?” Something flickers behind Antony’s eyes, but it disappears almost instantly.

“Oh, I’m not a lesbian—well, I _wasn’t_ a lesbian, I guess, but you take what you can get when practically all the men are dead,” laughs Caesar, and Brutus simply nods, not knowing how to respond. Cassius’s words from a few months ago, _“I bet you anything a lot of previously straight women are going to be rethinking their life choices now, mark my words,”_ seem eerily relevant now.

“So you and Antony—”

“Antony!” laughs Caesar. “What an idea!” Behind her, Antony’s frozen, looking like a deer caught in the headlights of a car, but when Caesar turns to face her she’s regained her composure. “Did you hear that?”

“I did,” says Antony in a perfectly neutral tone.

Caesar shakes her head, still softly laughing. “Absolutely not Antony. I’m dating Calpurnia—artist? Incredibly rich? Tall blonde?” The name sounds somewhat familiar, but Brutus can’t quite place it.

“I think I may have seen her once or twice,” lies Brutus awkwardly, and Caesar smiles.

“She’s very beautiful. And very talented. Look,” Caesar says, pulling something out of her purse, “Cal even painted this tiny portrait of me the other day! Isn’t it good?”

Brutus studies the portrait; Caesar's right, it _is_ good. It’s very detailed, very expressive, but there’s still something off about it—

It’s the eyes. Caesar’s eyes look dead, unfeeling. Inhuman, almost. Brutus resists the urge to shudder, instead complimenting Caesar on the likeness.

“Thank you,” smiles Caesar, smoothing her hair back methodically. “By the way, you _really_ should come over to our house at some point. I’m busy for the rest of this month and the beginning of next, but I should be free after that. How about, oh, March sixteenth?”

“I—,” begins Brutus, not really wanting to take Caesar up on the offer but feeling powerless to refuse, “um, that should work—”

“Excellent!” Caesar says, clapping her hands together decisively. “That’s that, then. I’ll see you around.” She turns to leave, but at the last minute whirls back around and catches Brutus in a surprise hug, and Brutus is more than a little bit taken aback.

“Thank you for supporting me,” she whispers. “You’ve got no _idea_ how stressful this governing thing is going to be from now on, and I know I wouldn’t have been able to get through all of it without you by my side.” She releases Brutus, bids her farewell once more, and then exits with Antony, leaving Brutus alone in room 315, wondering what Caesar could possibly mean by ‘you by my side’. Brutus hadn’t ever supported Caesar’s actions, had she? Could she have stopped all this? Is everything her fault?

Brutus desperately hopes not, desperately hopes that her inaction hasn’t been the reason for the demise of democratic government in Rome.

“Brutus?” It’s Cassius, poking her head through the door, and Brutus immediately smiles upon seeing her. “Oh, thank _fuck_. When she came down without you, I thought maybe she’d killed you and left your body up here.”

“She wouldn’t do that—”

Cassius stares at Brutus incredulously. “Are you _still_ sticking up for Caesar after what she just pulled with the virus?”

“No,” says Brutus, “of course not, I just don’t think she’s wholly bad—”

“ _Please_ ,” scoffs Cassius, “save your there’s-goodness-in-everyone bullshit for church.” Normally Brutus would have argued, but now doesn’t seem like the right time.

As they descend the stairs, she simply asks, “What are we going to tell Portia?”

Cassius swears but doesn’t respond aside from that.

“We’re going to tell her, right?” asks Brutus hesitantly.

“Hell no,” says Cassius heavily. “You heard Caesar back there. If we told Portia, we’d only be putting her in danger—”

“Portia can handle herself—”

“You think I don’t know that?” retorts Cassius. “You think I don’t know that? Portia’s one of the most self-sufficient people I know. But when it comes to killer viruses, no one’s immune.”

“Still though, we can’t just say _nothing_. What if we made her promise to not tell anything?” Brutus is nearly pleading now, willing to do anything to avoid lying to her wife.

“You and I both know that Portia would never agree to that. And even if she did, there’s probably hidden cameras installed in our house or some shit, knowing Caesar. We’d be dead by morning.”

“Do you really think Caesar’d actually release the virus, though?”

“Yes,” sighs Cassius, “yes, I do. I absolutely do, Brutus, we’ve been through this.”

Brutus doesn’t reply, only digs her hands into her pockets and braces against the chill as the two of them head out of the building into the biting end-of-February air.

* * *

It’s the beginning of March, and the vote for Pompey and Publius’s exile is tomorrow.

Brutus had mistakenly told Portia about the vote, and now she’s ranting about it at the dinner table and won’t stop.

“That’s _ridiculous_ , the fact that Caesar even thinks she can do something like that. We’re the only town left in the world, for all we know. Rome should be banding together, not exiling people.”

“It is ridiculous,” murmurs Cassius, staring at the table.

“Are Pompey and the reporter going to be kicked out of town?” asks Lucius, eyes wide. Brutus hadn’t realized that she’d been paying attention.

“Absolutely not,” says Portia fiercely. “At least, not if there’s any justice in the world. You two aren’t going to be voting for them to be exiled, I hope?”

“Of course not,” says Cassius after a silence that’s much, much too long. Brutus murmurs assent while simply staring down, unwilling to meet anyone’s gaze. There’s a terrible feeling in her stomach—guilt, probably, and Brutus doubts it will go away anytime soon.

* * *

The vote’s unanimous. No one is surprised. In the end, even Metellus votes for his sister’s exile when push finally comes to shove.

“Please don’t tell her I voted for her to be exiled,” he begs Caesar, face pale. “Please don’t. It would only make things worse.” Caesar only lightly taps her fingertips on the side of the small jar containing the virus and says she’ll do what’s best for Rome. Brutus desperately hopes that Caesar’s definition of ‘best’ matches up with hers.

“I’m glad we all agree that this was the best course of action,” says Caesar. “They’ll be exiled in two days, on March twelfth at noon. That’s all, then. Unless anyone has further opinions?” The eyes of the council members glare at Caesar like knives, but no one speaks up. No one dares risk it.

Once it’s all over, the council members simply leave room 315, no one willing to meet each other’s eyes.

“We can’t tell Portia it was unanimous,” says Cassius, running her hand through her short hair in an agitated manner. Brutus only nods, feeling dead inside. What's one more lie, anyway? What does one lie matter in the grand scheme of things? Everything’s already going to hell, and Brutus figures there’s no point in telling the truth and making things even worse.

* * *

The exile takes place on the stairs in front of the city hall; Brutus had tried to reason with Caesar, had tried to argue that having it in public was inhumane, that people would notice, that it would only cause more problems for the government, but Caesar had simply laughed her concerns off, saying that Roman citizens needed to know who was in charge.

All of the councilmembers are at the top of the stairs, close to the building. Caesar, Pompey and Publius are on the platform halfway between the top of the building and the floor, the latter two surrounded by a few tough-looking people whom Brutus suspects may be guards. At the bottom of the stairs, a small crowd has begun to form, and Brutus feels a jolt of panic when she sees Portia in the throng, frowning at the proceedings. She looks for Lucius, but doesn’t see her—probably, Brutus reasons, due to the fact that it’s noon and school is still undoubtedly going on. Brutus has never been more grateful for the education system in her entire life; she doesn’t want Lucius watching something like this and thinking that it’s how government is supposed to be run.

“Pompey,” begins Caesar, clearing her throat,“do you deny making fraudulent claims about the government and, through insistence that these claims were true, trying to dismantle Rome’s current democracy as we know it?”

“I—what?” spits Pompey. “Democracy? This isn’t a _democracy_ , you deluded f—”

“But it _is_ a democracy,” says Caesar. “We all voted on this decision, isn’t that right?” She looks back at the council members; a few of them, such as Antony, nod vigorously, but most simply shift back and forth, refusing to meet Caesar’s gaze.

“You all—?”

“Yes, we all voted,” Caesar replies, smiling a smile that’s all teeth and no eyes. “In fact, the vote was completely unanimous.”

Nearly everyone in the council visibly tenses, Brutus included. In the crowd, a confused-looking Portia catches her eye and mouths _“Unanimous?”_. Brutus simply looks away, not wanting to deal with this while in public.

“Completely unanimous?” whispers Publius, trembling silently. Brutus has never heard her speak before now, but Publius’s voice is very similar to Metellus’s—reedy, hollow almost.

Next to Brutus, Metellus stares firmly at the ground, doesn’t look at his sister.

“Unanimous,” says Pompey, and her eyes widen. “You told them, didn’t you. Didn’t you?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Pompey,” Caesar replies, shaking her head. “After your—ah, _outburst_ a few months ago, no one in the council was willing to support your dangerous lunacies.”

“That’s not true,” Pompey says, but her gaze is frantically darting around the council members now. “It’s _not_.” Cassius, next to Brutus, draws a sharp intake of breath.

“What?” hisses Brutus to Cassius out of the corner of her mouth.

“She knew, Brutus,” Cassius whispers back to her. “Pompey must have known about the virus this whole time—hell, Caesar probably cornered her alone after her outburst at the first meeting and told her—”

“And she’s been living with the knowledge of that for this whole time,” finishes Brutus, feeling, if possible, even worse. The council members had written Pompey off as crazy when in fact Pompey had been the best judge of Caesar’s character than the rest of them combined.

And now she was paying the price for it.

“God,” whispers Cassius, shaking her head slightly. “Knowing that for all this time must have just fucking eaten away at her.” Brutus silently murmurs assent.

Below them, Caesar seems to have finished talking about the crimes that Pompey and Publius have committed and is now waiting for a response.

“So,” says Pompey, face unreadable, “we’re a disturbance to the peace?” Publius, behind her, has a worried expression but says nothing.

“Correct,” replies Caesar.

“Is that _so_ ,” says Pompey fiercely, and in one fluid motion, she wrenches her arm free from the viselike grip of the guard, reaches into her purse, and pulls out a small, delicate pistol.

Things seem as if they’re happening in slow motion. Pompey points the pistol at Caesar and fires. Someone in the crowd screams. Cassius gasps.

Caesar’s face is pale white, but she seems to be unharmed. She’s saying something, but Brutus can’t make out what it is amidst the chaos that’s taken hold of the crowd.

Pompey stares at the barrel of the pistol, unmoving, eyes wide. The guard that had been holding onto her arm lunges for the gun but misses, and all of a sudden Brutus knows what’s going to happen before it does.

In one fluid motion, Pompey turns the pistol around, points it at her temple, and pulls the trigger.

There’s a very loud noise, like thunder. And then there’s screaming, even more screaming than there had been before.

“Oh god,” screams Cassius, “oh god oh god oh god oh _god_ —”

Brutus doesn’t say anything.

Pompey’s fallen to the floor of the platform. There’s blood gushing from her head, so much blood, a stream of dark red and red and red that just won’t stop—

“Brutus? Talk to me.”

Pompey’s body looks very small, very hollow, and Brutus dimly wonders whether it was always like that and she’d just never noticed or whether it’s only small now because all the life is gone.

“Brutus?”

The bloodflow isn’t stopping.

“Brutus!” Cassius is shouting, is standing in front of Brutus, blocking her view of the body.

“Did you see that,” says Brutus, moving away from Cassius to see Pompey’s body again.

“Of _course_ I fucking did,” sobs Cassius, “of course I—Brutus? You’re in shock, you’re in shock, just _listen_ to me, let’s go, come on—”

Caesar’s staring down at Pompey’s body, and her expression is completely neutral.

“Brutus,” says Cassius, voice shaking. “We’re leaving.”

Brutus doesn’t fight her, only lets Cassius lead her away from the stairs and through the crowd to where Portia’s waiting for them.

* * *

“Unanimous,” says Portia dully, later that night. “Caesar said the vote was unanimous.”

“Portia,” replies Cassius, “Portia, it’s not what you think—”

“I’m not going to ask why,” says Portia. “Not now, at least. Not today. I only want to know why you kept it from me.”

“We—,” begins Brutus, intending to tell her everything, but Cassius cuts her off.

“That’s, um, government-only information, Portia—”

“Is it really,” interrupts Portia icily. “Is it _really_.”

“ _Yes_. Portia, goddamn it, it _is_. We’d tell you if we could, I swear on my life,” pleads Cassius.

“Suit yourselves,” says Portia, eyes full of pain. She walks away without another word, leaving Brutus with a terrible feeling of guilt.

“We have to tell her, Cassius, _please_ , I don’t care if Caesar finds out anymore,” begs Brutus.

“With luck,” says Cassius grimly, “we won’t need to.”

“What are you saying?”

“If all goes according to plan, you’ll see soon enough. Hopefully tomorrow or the next day.” Cassius rises once she finishes speaking, which prompts Brutus to ask where she’s going.

“I’m meeting with a few of the council members,” Cassius says bluntly.

“At this hour?” It’s after midnight, and all Brutus wants to do is fall asleep and never have to think or feel anymore. Cassius simply nods.

“But why?” asks Brutus.

“I told you, you’ll find out.” With that, Cassius exits the room. After a few seconds, Brutus hears the front door open, then shut, and she’s left alone with only the horrible guilty feeling for company.

* * *

The next morning, the morning of the thirteenth, there’s a celebration.

When Brutus and Cassius wake up the next morning to head to the council meeting (they’d used the cameras in Portia’s room to see that there was, in fact, a crowd outside of the city hall), they come across people in the streets yelling, shouting, and even streaming banners from their houses.

“What the hell?” says Cassius. “What’s going on?” One of the people shouts a response, but they’re too far away from Brutus to hear what they said.

“What’d they say?” asks Brutus. Cassius only shakes her head in bewilderment and goes closer to the throng of celebrating people, presumably to ask her question again.

It takes a while for Cassius to return, but when she does she looks almost hollow, as if a vital part of her has been removed and was never replaced.

“Cassius, what is it?” Brutus asks, immediately running to her side, but Cassius only shakes her head, says it’s nothing important.

“Cassius, I—”

“It’s Pompey, alright?” says Cassius fiercely. “They thought Pompey was an enemy of the people, and they’re thrilled that she’s gone.”

“They’re glad she _killed herself_?” Brutus whispers. She’d never dreamed that people, and especially not Roman people, could be so inhumane.

“And that’s not the worst of it,” continues Cassius. “Publius was exiled last night after we left, despite the fact that she’d just watched her best friend shoot herself in the head.”

Brutus is speechless. “Are you sure? I don’t think Caesar would do something so—”

“Christ, what about this don’t you _get_?” hisses Cassius. “Caesar isn’t your friend anymore, if she ever was to begin with. She’s a dictator now, and more people are going to die or be exiled unless we do something.”

“But what can we do? Caesar’s got the virus.”

“Then,” says Cassius, “we’ll just have to make sure she doesn’t use it.”

“And how do you plan on—” Brutus begins, but Cassius quickly makes a slashing movement against her throat in warning; they’re approaching the steps of the council building, and most of the rest of the council members seem to be there, including Caesar herself. There’s a crowd around the steps that’s at least three times as big as the one yesterday, and Brutus feels a twinge of worry in her gut upon surveying the mass of people in it.

Brutus and Cassius ascend the steps, where Caesar, Antony, and some blonde woman, who Brutus takes to be Calpurnia, are conversing.

As Cassius and Brutus join the council members, there’s a voice from the crowd that shouts Caesar’s name.

“Yes?” asks Caesar, whirling around at the sound of her name. Casca also calls for quiet, and Brutus wonders briefly why she seems to be supporting Caesar all of a sudden.

“Did someone say my name?” continues Caesar.

“Beware,” says a tinny voice from somewhere in the crowd, and Brutus sees that the voice is question is coming from a very small old lady, “the Ides of March.”

“What the—I mean, who is that?” Caesar asks Brutus, leaning closer as she does so.

“It’s some woman who wants you to beware the Ides of March,” replies Brutus, hoping Caesar will leave her alone.

“What the _hell_ is the Ides of March?” hisses Caesar.

“I think it’s the middle of the month. That’d be the fifteenth,” Brutus whispers back, although truth be told she isn’t entirely sure either. She only wants Caesar to get away from her so she can talk to Cassius in peace.

“Ah,” says Caesar. Addressing the whole crowd, she asks whoever it is to step forward, and the small old woman does.

“ _What_ did you say to me?” asks Caesar somewhat threateningly.

“Beware the Ides of March,” repeats the old woman, apparently unperturbed by Caesar’s demeanor.

Caesar blatantly scoffs in her face.

“All right then. Let’s get on with _important_ things, then, shall we?” says Caesar, walking away. As she continues speaking, Cassius pulls on Brutus’s hand and walks her into the council building.

“Isn’t she a real piece of work,” Cassius says dully once they enter the building; it’s not a question, merely a statement. Brutus only nods.

“I mean,” begins Cassius again, “you can go back out there if you want, but—”

“No,” says Brutus, yawning slightly, “I’d rather not. Although if for some reason you do, don’t let me stop you.” Cassius simply shakes her head, narrowing her eyes, and Brutus finds herself yawning again.

“My god, Brutus, did you sleep at _all_ last night?” Cassius asks.

“A little, I guess,” says Brutus, “but it’s not a problem, really, I’m just worried about—,” she begins to say ‘the government’ but stops herself— “Rome.” Cassius smiles bitterly.

“God, Brutus,” she says, “sometimes I think you worry about Rome more than anyone else here, including Caesar.” Brutus is about to deny that, to insist that she should have done more for their town, _much_ more, but she’s interrupted by a sound of shouting outside.

“What’s going on?” she asks.

“They’re probably making Caesar the supreme dictator of Rome, if this morning’s reaction is anything to go by,” scowls Cassius, and Brutus sighs.

“She’s my friend,” begins Brutus, and Cassius folds her arms over her chest. Brutus continues, “well, she _was_ my friend, and she might still be, but I certainly don’t want her to be emperor of Rome. I don’t want anyone to be emperor of Rome, but especially not her, what with the virus and all.” Brutus pauses, but Cassius is still staring at her in a somewhat expectant manner, so she softly continues, “I don’t think I even want her to be on the _council_ anymore.” Cassius nods, expression mostly impassive.

“So,” says Brutus, unsure how exactly to continue the current topic, “did you just bring me in here to talk about how much you hate Caesar?”

“When I was younger,” begins Cassius, apparently not answering Brutus’s question, “Caesar and I were college students, and we were—well, I won’t say _friends_ , but we were pretty close. Anyway, we were in college, and one day Caesar’s like ‘Hey Cassius, let’s break into the pool area just for the fun of it’, and I, being the fucking idiot I am, agreed to it.”

“Cassius, not to be rude, but what the hell does this have to do with _anything_ —”

“I am _getting_ to that, Brutus,” says Cassius. “Anyway, so we break in and we’re swimming laps, right? Everything’s cool, I’m very proud of myself, and then Caesar starts drowning.”

“Drowning?”

Cassius nods. “She was probably faking it, actually—wouldn’t put it past her. But anyway, she starts drowning and shouting for help, so of course I go over to help her and end up pretty much carrying her out of the water.”

“And?”

“Once we get out, she takes off like a rocket, and I’m just standing there wondering what the hell’s going on. That’s when the campus police showed up.”

“Oh,” whispers Brutus. “Did you get in trouble?”

“Nothing more than a threatening lecture, thank God. But from then on I didn’t associate with her. You just can’t fucking trust people like Caesar, Brutus; I don’t care how long you’ve known her. And you especially can’t trust her to carry the potential future of all humanity in her pocket. ”

There’s another shout from outside. Brutus turns to see what’s happening, but can’t make out anything except general shapes through the frosted glass doors.

“They sound happy,” Brutus says morosely. “You’re right, they probably are crowning her the supreme dictator of Rome.”

“It isn’t fair,” replies Cassius.

“What isn’t?”

“That of all people, it had to be _her_ who’s going to be in charge of everything, when anyone else could do it just as well, if not much better. Hell, just look at you, for instance.”

“Me?” asks Brutus, face suddenly feeling very warm.

“Of course!” says Cassius, eyes alight. “What the fuck is so great about Caesar anyway? What makes her more qualified to rule Rome than you do? Nothing, that’s what.”

“But I don’t want to rule Rome, I just want there to be a democracy—”

“Exactly,” replies Cassius, putting a comforting hand on Brutus’s shoulder. “That’s exactly what I mean. You’re three times the woman she is.”

If Brutus hadn’t been blushing before, she’s sure she is now.

“Cassius, I get what you’re saying, and I get that life under Caesar’s going to be more or less hell, but what exactly are you implying?” she asks, but Cassius doesn’t respond, only quickly motions for her to be quiet—the rest of the council members seem to finally be entering the building.

Antony walks in right next to Caesar, and Caesar's jaw is clenched; she looks somewhat ashamed, almost. Most of the council members begin heading up to room 315, but Cassius pulls Casca by the back of her shirt before she can make her way up.

"What the hell?" says Casca, bristling as she turns around, but she relaxes upon seeing that it's only Brutus and Cassius.

"We just want to know what all the shouting out there was for," Brutus says in what she hopes is a calm and reassuring voice.

Casca simply gives the two of them a quizzical look before asking, “Weren’t both of you listening?”

“We wouldn’t be asking you if we were,” replies Brutus.

“Clearly you two were too busy making out or whatever to pay attention,” shrugs Casca. Brutus feels her face getting warm again, while Cassius simply smirks. Casca continues, “Caesar was more or less offered the position of our ruler, but she was all ‘hell no’. Except she said it in a more classy way than that.”

“Caesar refused?” repeats Brutus.

“Of course Caesar refused,” sighs Cassius, “it’s the perfect way for her to look like she actually gives a fuck about democracy. But who offered her the mayoral position?”

“You get three guesses and the first two don’t count.”

“Antony,” whispers Cassius grimly, and Casca nods in confirmation.

“Give the woman a prize! Yeah, Antony kept asking Caesar to be mayor but Caesar just refused every time. And then,” Casca pauses, eyes sparkling in a slightly malicious manner, “Caesar collapsed.”

“Collapsed?” asks Cassius, and Casca nods.

“Yep. Remember that one council meeting where she collapsed? This time was exactly like that.”

“Well, she does have epilepsy,” says Brutus matter-of-factly.

“Right,” scoffs Casca. “Or so she says.”

“She does!” replies Brutus. “I’ve known her for years; she wouldn’t lie about something like that.” _Would she?_  asks a tiny voice in the back of Brutus’s head. Though Brutus tries to dissuade it, she can’t shake the thought that maybe Casca has a point. The person Brutus had thought Caesar was and the person that Caesar’s revealed herself to be are completely different, and Brutus doesn’t know what or who to believe anymore.

“Suit yourself,” Casca says. “It was pretty convenient, though—a ton of the people didn’t seem to be very pleased about the fact that the mayorship was even being offered to Caesar. She said something about how she’d rather let the people kill her than displease them, I think? Then she collapsed, and when she woke up, she tried to use her illness as an excuse for all the things she’d done wrong.”

“And then she came back here?” asks Brutus.

“Correct. Oh, and I’ve got more news. Two other council members—Murellus and Flavius, don’t know if you know them—got caught badmouthing Caesar and pulling banners off people’s houses. Who knows what their punishment will be, but I bet it won’t be pretty, knowing Caesar and Antony.”

“Do you think she’ll release the virus?” whispers Brutus, hoping against hope that Casca’s answer will be no.

Casca shrugs, but Cassius says, “I doubt it.” Brutus breathes a sigh of relief, but Cassius isn’t done. “She’ll probably just exile the pair of them.”

Brutus’s heart sinks.

“Probably,” shrugs Casca. “What a goddamn hellhole Rome’s turned out to be, am I right?” She smirks, but neither Cassius nor Brutus returns the smile.

“You’re absolutely right,” sighs Cassius. “We should probably head up, though, I expect Caesar’s wondering where we’ve run off to. I’ll talk to you later.” Casca simply nods, walks away, and begins jogging up the stairs without another word.

“She’s kind of...blunt, isn’t she?” murmurs Brutus to Cassius after Casca walks away.

“Oh, absolutely,” says Cassius. “Casca’s very blunt, but underneath all that she’s actually one of the smartest people I know. Aside from you and Portia, of course.”

Brutus smiles half-heartedly, simply saying, “We’ll talk later, alright?” She doesn’t want to go to the meeting, only wants to think about the problems facing their government and how to get rid of them.

She begins to head for the stairs leading to room 315, but Cassius holds up a hand to stop her.

“I’m not going to ask you to do anything yet, but I will ask you to think of Rome,” says Cassius softly. “You’ve got the best judgement of anyone I know, Brutus. Until we talk again, think of Rome—no, think of the world.” With that, Cassius lightly kisses Brutus on the lips before beginning to ascend the stairs, leaving Brutus alone at the bottom.

 _Think of the world._ The words resonate through Brutus’s mind as she climbs the stairs and takes her seat around the table, where everyone else is deathly quiet, scared into submission by the power that Caesar and Antony hold over all of them. _Think of the world._

Caesar begins talking, and everyone listens because they have no other choice, and it’s wrong. It’s all wrong.

_Think of the world._

Rome is the only part of the world left that Brutus knows of, a single living piece of earth amidst the barren landscape surrounding it, and Brutus would give her life to protect it. She’s sure of that now.

_Think of the world._

Caesar was her friend, and Caesar may still be her friend. Ultimately, however, there’s no denying the fact that her control has harmed Rome much more than it’s helped. If Caesar hadn’t taken charge, no one would have been blackmailed. Portia wouldn’t be angry with Cassius and Brutus. Publius wouldn’t have been exiled.

Pompey wouldn’t have died.

Brutus loves Caesar dearly—still loves her even after all that’s happened—but if it’s a choice between Caesar, who’s her friend, and Rome, which is the world that supported Brutus when no one else would, then there really is no choice. There never was. Rome was and is always going to be Brutus’s first priority. Protecting Rome, and all the people that live in it, from Portia to Lucius to Cassius to Metellus to Titinius—hell, even Antony—is the only thing Brutus wants.

Caesar has the virus, and it’s threatening Rome’s safety. Brutus doesn’t know what she’s going to have to do to get rid of the virus, but at this point she’s willing to try anything.

_Think of the world._

Brutus reaches under the table and squeezes Cassius’s hand lightly. Cassius looks over at her, smiles faintly, and squeezes her hand back. No matter what happens next and no matter how hard or terrible things may end up getting, Brutus knows that Cassius will stand up for Rome, and so will a lot of the other council members as well.

Humanity may be near extinction; humanity may be a dying breed on a forgotten planet, a breed whose future all depends on whether or not a small jar is opened.

But Brutus will be damned if she’s going to let that jar be opened without a fight.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr user shakespeareismyjam sent in the prompt I filled, which was: “apocalypse of any kind (sci-fi, fantasy, real-ish, whatever), rule 63” with a special request for 'as many ladies as possible', so hopefully I did that justice at least somewhat.
> 
> Apologies for knowing next to nothing about government, engineering, technology, viruses, or how human bodies would function when in cryogenic storage. There's only so much that Google can help you with when it comes to things like these. I'd also like to apologize for both my omissions and bastardizations of real Roman history, as both occur frequently throughout this fic. (The real Marcus Junius Brutus was not, in fact, an American lesbian in her twenties. Shocking, I know.)
> 
> 'Room 315' is a not-so-subtle reference to March 15th (3/15, ha ha ha).
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!! :)


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